


Runaways

by Starbat



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/F, More characters to be added as they appear - Freeform, corrin is a dragon and so few ppl capitalize on this im honestly shook, dragons are cool please pay attention to her bein a dragon im BEGGING
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 53,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9587924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbat/pseuds/Starbat
Summary: All Azura has ever done is cause trouble. A bastard child in her home country, a failed hostage in her second, and an unwanted heiress in the third. Is it truly a surprise that trouble should follow her footsteps even into the wilderness?Or,Fleeing from two counties, the last thing Azura expects herself to do is sneak back into one of them to steal from the Queen - of course, she also didn't quite anticipate a run in with a dragon. Or anything that happened after the fact.((extremely au, but still in the same world.))





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey what's up!! im back from the dead!! (dead being my complete damn inability to concentrate on more than one fandom at a time lmfao) and. no this has nothing to do with the release of heroes idk what you're talking about,,,,,,,,,((corrin came home <3333 )) anyways im sure u have all had enough of the useless notes, here's an au where i, as usual, pay Excessive Attention to the Non Human Aspects of the Environment. im probably going to have to edit the summary/title for this later because it took me like an hour to get and im still dissatisfied with the title tbh
> 
> Also im aware i haven't updated my lake monster story in literally over half a year and im extremely sorry but im def going to have to chase this idea down before my brain will even consider letting me finish off that one lmao....i'm trying, though, i swear.....
> 
> enjoy this in the meantime

With nowhere else to go, Azura is forced to run up, into the mountains, away from the people that had been her family in Hoshido and _certainly_ away from the people that had been cruel to her in Nohr – cast aside as a hostage with no value in one, and as a threat to the royal family in the second. Bitter rejection on two fronts. There was nowhere to go but away, not to any particular place but to the vague, hopeful thought that, at some point, she will have to fall outside of both borders, or die in the attempt.

It isn’t an easy trip. While she was able to slow down significantly once she lost her pursuers, there wasn’t shelter to be seen for miles. Just trees and hills and rocks and greenery, most of which she doubted she could eat. Azura managed to travel all the way to the upper crest of a mountain overlooking Nohr’s side of the border but within Hoshido’s territory.

From here, the shadow of Nohr and the light of Hoshido meet in direct contrast: she can toe the line between them like it is a tangible thing and the glare from the sun makes her pay more attention to her feet than the horizon as she walks towards Hoshido.

Even though she’d run up here for her safety, as the sun gets lower and lower, Azura’s unease only grows. Harmless shadows create cages of twisting bramble in the lower lighting, and she finds herself gripping her pendant and trying to steel herself for the cold that will follow nightfall.

Azura hears a rustling noise and forces herself to dismiss it. It could be nothing. It could be a hare or a bird in the brush. It’s nothing, she reassures herself.

There is the sound of disturbed underbrush again; and the noise seems amplified in light of her situation, as if the scraping of animal limbs against twigs has caused the scrape to reach her own soul and send an involuntary shiver throughout her.

She tries to be reasonable. She has her naginata. Nothing up here is going to hurt her, not without a struggle. She can take care of a wolf or two if she is agile enough, and she knows that her will to live will, someway, somehow, carry her through.

Pressing onwards, Azura decides to renew her search for shelter. There are many crumbling rocks on the top of the hill; hopefully a few of them could be used to make a shelter, or at least something to wall off three sides of herself.

Azura is almost there, wherever ‘there’ ends up being.

The mountain levels for a moment , as if a large chunk had slipped off and half the peak fell off a long time ago. There is a spiral sort of effect and it becomes clear to Azura that she can keep travelling upwards if she gets around the stone wall she has been met with. Before she gets the chance to slip fully around, something rounds the corner -something big. Not a wolf, and not something Azura can fight off with her lance, bigger.

On the light side of the mountain, outside the shadow cast by the cliff face, a dragon is standing at attention, agitated.

It doesn’t _really_ match her expectations of what a dragon is, but somehow, Azura knows that is what she is seeing. The more powerful, more intelligent, more terrifying cousins of wyverns, the sort of thing that makes monsters cower and humans prostrate themselves amongst shrines, begging for leadership or mercy.

The beast strikes at something baser in Azura’s core. Her blood runs cold.

The head is smooth and seemingly faceless; it seems to stare despite having no visible eyes. Twisting horns hook around the sides of its head like tree branches, too warped to resemble the antlers of a deer, which have an oddly metallic splendor to them. They look the way a polished sword feels. Scaly blue and grey plates line its’ body and she knows her weapon would scrape off them uselessly. It has long, spindly looking legs with feet that hold an uncanny resemblance to hands.

Having made ‘eye contact’, it is too late to run. Azura makes one, two attempts to back up, easing herself back onto lower ground and wondering if this thing can smell fear, when the dragon growls and crouches, wings rising above the body, it’s getting ready to pounce on her, to tear her throat out with that strange metal jaw, to –

Azura makes a shoddy attempt to retreat once more, bringing her naginata up as if it holds a candle to the thick scales before it. This is a joke, she knows and it knows (probably) that this is a slipshod attempt to cover her exit. It growls more. She curses internally.

The dragon leaps out at her, and she holds her weapon in front of herself as firmly as she can, bracing herself for the mauling but prepared to at least damage her assailant before it can reach her.

Only –

Only, nothing happens, and instead she hears a series of growls and snarls coming from behind her. The dragon is not far, certainly, and the reverberations of the growls are so close she can feel the noise run clear through her body, like laying on top of an instrument or standing in an earthquake.

It missed?

Somehow Azura doesn’t believe it, and so she turns to face the scene. The dragon did, in fact, land on something – just not her. A wolf, snarling and snapping with foamy jaws, is encaged between two of it’s legs while it beats its wings at the creature and snaps back at it with the metal jaw. Though it is trying, the canine cannot penetrate the scales, and, eventually, after worming mostly out of the dragon’s grasp, it gives one last defeated snarl before running off with its tail between its legs as the dragon lashes at it with a bladed tail.

The dragon roars after it, but makes no move to follow.

Azura lets out a breath she didn’t mean to hold, and then the dragon turns around to face her, and she stiffenes again. Is that why it chased the wolf off, then..? Of course, it wouldn’t want competition over the best parts of her, the dragon could easily eat her and be done within only a few days, easily – she is so scared she feels she might start shaking.

It takes a halting step forward. Azura doesn’t bother stepping back; knowing the kind of distance it could clear, it would be worthless anyways. She watches with her heart in her stomach, feeling oddly removed from the situation, either out of fear or some sort of divine pity.

The dragon closes the distance until it is so close that Azura can make out a red glow behind part of the metallic-looking horns that curve into the ‘face’ – perhaps it has eyes after all. Neck stooped so that they are head-to-head, the dragon stands stock still for a long, long time. Azura mirrors the stillness.

After a long pause, it brushes past her, craning its neck around as it walks as if to keep an inquisitive gaze on her. It almost seems to tilt its head, like a perplexed house pet. She feels a light bump to her back – it’s pushing her.

Azura lets out a shaky laugh, somehow feeling out of the danger zone, and stumbles forward at the dragon’s insistence. Unbelievable. For some reason, _whatever reason_ , she is still alive.

And what’s more, she is being beckoned.

Eventually the dragon leads Azura to a small alcove near the top of the mountain, a rocky archway that juts out some nine feet above and holds a deep cave, sloping only a little downwards and ending near what looked to be almost the other side of the spire entirely – impressive.

There are signs of living inside. The walls are all marked up, but Azura can make out patterns and designs – it seems quite intentional. Towards the deeper end of the cave she sees a pile of furs, skinned with some degree of competency, and another, separate pile of what looks like assorted junk – a dented sword, a handful of shoddy looking arrows, and two or three books, among other things. The supplies are rudimentary, but there. Perhaps someone lives with the dragon…?

No, that doesn’t make sense, otherwise they would probably be together. Nobody in their right mind would tame a dragon and then just _leave_ it to catch people and scare the shit out of them on its own. It had to be some other thing. Maybe the dragon has captured people before, and kept them here?

But then, why were they gone now? While she mulls it over, the dragon brushes past her and into the cave with a satisfied-sounding chortle. Its claws scrape up against the floor.

…..Maybe she really is going to be eaten and it’s simply already full. That would explain why it didn’t kill the wolf and why –

“Why…did you come up here?”

Startled out of her thoughts, Azura blinks rapidly. Someone is already here? Perhaps her Nohrian adjustment to the darkness was not as good as she believed it was. Did her time in Hoshido strip her of that adaptation? Some things, she reasons, never do quite return, but still……she did _just_ spend time back in Nohr….

“I’m sorry?” She says, on instinct, and then when she’s gotten over the worst of the surprise, looks for the speaker. However confused she may be, the naginata remains tight in her grip, wooden shaft holding up no matter how hard she squeezes. At this rate, she will get a splinter. Azura makes a mental note to sand it if she isn’t eaten or forced down the mountain back into civilization.

Near the back of the cave, a girl with bright red eyes that seem unnaturally reflective stares at her cautiously. She thinks, behind the girl, there is the outline of wings. Azura again blinks rapidly, in disbelief of what her eyes are telling her. The dragon?!

Seeming to sense her question, the other girl (dragon) looks away, looking nervous and well-meaning at once. Sheepish. “I, um…I want to help you. Promise! I know there are….rumors, about the dragon on the cliff, but, I _try_ not to hurt anyone, I do….”

“I believe you.” Azura replies, with a certainty that surprises even herself.

She cracks a smile at that and motions for Azura to follow her more fully inside. “…I don’t know why you would run up here, but if you’d put yourself in a dragon’s path rather than face it…..ah, well…you don’t have to tell me.” The dragon says in a conversational tone, albeit still with that underlying nervousness. “But, you should sleep, and wash those cuts.”

She stops at one of the piles on the ground, this being a large mound of animal furs, and rummages around until she gets a mostly-clean looking pelt that seemed to have come from a mountain lion.

She passes it over to Azura. “Thank you.” She just stands with it for a moment or two until she works up the might to ask, because the gods know Azura can’t go too long without a name to call her by – “Not to be rude, but, do you have a name? I’m Azura.”

“Corrin.” Comes the response, and soon after, a wide grin. “Does…that make us friends?”

Azura isn’t sure if no is an applicable answer, but it still takes a moment to respond. Her shy tendencies, of course, have to rear their head. “I’d like to be,” She says softly, once she’s broken eye contact and can be confident her face isn’t flushed red anymore.

It seems to work anyways. Corrin maintains her smile and offers a hand to Azura. “Here. I need to find something to eat, for dinner, but the least I can do is show you where to get water while I’m out.”

“Thank you,” She takes Corrin’s hand. It’s less delicate than she’d somehow expected, and not simply in a calloused way. The skin is hard around the joints, and her nails haven’t quite lost the clawlike quality exhibited in her dragon form. Azura tries to extinguish her discomfort and focus on Corrin’s face, which makes it easiest to remember she is in no danger.

Though her wings and hands may be angular or hard and unnerving, her face is rather girlish. She doesn’t seem older than Azura is (although dragons and aging is a finnicky subject, admittedly) and her eyes are soft if a bit reptilian. She isn’t being hostile by any means. Azura repeats to herself that there is nothing to fear.

Even still, it’d have been nice if she could have been a kitsune instead, something people had at least been known to be on good terms with. A real, live dragon….well, Azura supposes there is a reason everyone prefers them to be beasts of legend or simple wyverns. The amount of power in one body is unparalleled, if legends are even half-true.

Corrin walks her a short ways down the hill to a stream that trickles merrily down into the lands of Hoshido, at a steady pace. There is a bit of a flat ground on the slope, where it has collected water in a basin, of sorts. Barely a pond, but still a water source. Azura feels marginally better as she sits beside it on a stone.

“The water is clean.” Corrin says. “If you’d like it warmed or boiled….”She seems to search for a word, but come up short, because Corrin looks away, suddenly bashful, and clears her throat. “…y’know. Dragons, sorta….yeah. Fire. I’ll help.” Corrin wrings her hands with a last, sheepish laugh. Then she looks at Azura expectantly.

“It looks plenty clean to me,” Azura says, taking the hint and sparing another glance at the calm waters. It’s nearing dark, but she can tell the pond is usually pretty clear. By night it should reflect the stars quite beautifully. “If it’s safe, do you mind if I sit here for a while?” She asks tentatively, without tearing her eyes away just yet. “I find water helps me relax, if only a little….” She trails off and looks up hopefully.

Corrin nods enthusiastically. “I don’t mind at all! The bigger animals don’t often stray up here, so you should be okay. Give me a shout if you get scared, though – I’ll hear it.”

Azura nods back distractedly, prodding the surface of the water with a stick while she finally, finally gets around to thinking about her circumstances once again. In the further outskirts of her vision, something big launches into the sky.

She sits. Watches ripples. Listens for the dripping of the creek.

At some point, she starts to cry.

It’s horribly embarrassing, but Corrin isn’t around to see, and she doesn’t have to worry about some dreaded noble figure seeing, either – not when no country would have anything to do with her. A bastard child in Nohr and a failed hostage in Hoshido…..a reputation that surely precedes her in both. Even Valla is of no comfort; who in the world would want to rule a kingdom of only one person? Everything else there wishes her dead just as much as the two surface kingdoms do.

 _Mother,_ she thinks, tipping her head back to try and keep the tears from continuing. _What will become of us now…?_

All that she has left are a stupid trinket and a song.

 _Better than nothing_ , Azura thinks, a lame attempt at optimism. To soothe her own nerves, she hums, the same song as always. Humming doesn’t hurt her later, so she can afford herself this small joy.

Crystal drops rise from her amulet, a soft ambiance around her field of vision.

* * *

Not long into her idling, Azura feels, rather than sees, Corrin land near her, and looks up to see her against her better judgment.

Before her stands the same terrifying beast of earlier, only now it carries proof of its danger: now it holds a mangled deer between its shining jaw and blood darkens the scales around its front paws and mouth, and she can see spatters on the chest from the carcass thumping against the dragon in flight. Now its antlers are not clean blades but used ones, having gored the deer at some point and snagged a tuft of fur and some blood.

Now it terrifies her more, despite knowing the truth of things, because now it is darker and the dragon is standing tall above her, sitting, helpless and lance-less, and Azura thinks her heart must have stopped or at least skipped a beat when it drops the deer onto the ground not five feet in front of her and the body crumbles onto it like a ragdoll.

Like a rabbit in a slipknot trap, stuck but not yet dead – Azura tenses on the rock and looks at the deer’s mangled hide even as her better nature screams that she is overreacting. It’s messier than what hunters would bring back, not the bloodless, single-puncture-kill of civilization. Grooves run through it, and that was hide, so what those claws could do to skin –

The dragon makes a loud sound, a growl and a shrill caw, then crouches low to the ground and dives into the water. Azura flinches and curls inwards, humming forgotten, until she hears a second splash and feels something brush against her foot. Corrin sloshes about in the water, eventually prodding Azura again with her antlers and an inquisitive…noise. She isn’t quite sure where to place it – somewhere between the trill of a bird and an angry dog, maybe? A purr-like growl.

Regardless, whatever response she was looking for, she didn’t get it from Azura, because Corrin soon huffed and shoved her into the water. With a sharp yelp, Azura falls in, unable to stay dry. Coughing, she resurfaced, and is still in the midst of pushing all her hair out of her eyes when she hears a distinctly human sputtering.

She cracks an eye open and Corrin, ‘human’ again and washed (mostly) clean of blood, shakes herself like a wet mutt, her soppy grey hair dripping with pondwater and flinging it about the hillside as she does so, and hurries over to her. “I didn’t – I – I – oh, gods, I’m so sorry, I – I didn’t think, usually there isn’t – ah –“ She sighs. “I forgot what I must look like….to you….”

Guilt overtakes her as quickly as fear had. Azura lets out a shaky sigh and puts a tentative hand on Corrin’s shoulder. “It’s my fault….I’m the one who forgot. You haven’t done anything to me; I scared myself.”

“But-“

Azura shakes her head, cutting off the dragon’s protest. “You’ve been kind to me and I don’t want you feeling bad over a little scare like that. Please allow me to take the blame.”

“Still, I usually come here to wash up; I forgot you were on the rocks, and I certainly wasn’t looking my friendliest..” Behind her, her tail flicks about in the water; did Corrin always have that? Azura could have sworn it wasn’t there the last time she saw her in this form..

Staring is rude, but it seems Azura didn’t manage to look away in time. Corrin notices her interest and looks to see what it was all about, seeming to make the connection. She pulls her tail over to Azura to give her a better look at the blades – they’re really just scales, pointed but certainly not sharpened. Nothing like small razor-edged swords, like they looked at first glance. “I was, very hasty, turning back, so.” Corrin coughs and scratches at her cheek. “The way I look, uh, varies, a lot. I always try again if I get a really, _really_ weird combination, but since I’m usually alone….” She trails off.

“It generally isn’t a problem.” Azura finishes for her, earning a bashful nod.

“I used to look normal.” She says earnestly, gesturing to the whole of herself. “Maybe not, uh, average, considering my hair and eye colors, but, normal. A long time ago. Before I was a dragon.” She chews on her lip, apparently lost in thought. “I haven’t been able to go back to that, though. But my mind comes close. It’s relaxing up here, where dragons are supposed to be – I’m lucky in that the dragon-y half of me just wants to laze around all the time. I usually get to stay in charge.”

“But there are times….?” Azura leand back against the stone, still digesting the information. Corrin hasn’t always been a dragon? How is that possible? People don’t just _gain_ shapeshifting powers – they have to be born into it. Maybe Corrin is missing something……maybe her catalyst was stolen, and that’s what she means. Still more concerning is the sentiment that Corrin wasn’t quite as harmless as Azura’s been led to believe.

A sentiment that, of course, Corrin hurries to smooth over. “I wouldn’t hurt you! I know it sounds bad, and like a lie, but…..I don’t think, even as a dragon, I would….not without being attacked, first.”

Azura sighs. Corrin has been nothing but kind to her, there’s no denying that. She doesn’t intend harm, and it’s better to risk it here than to go back to civilization where harm is certain.

Of course, the idea of being killed by a dragon is less appealing than a spear……but death would be death, regardless of the cause, and at least up here it would not be immediate.

She offers a weak smile, and tries to wring out her hair. “I trust you.” She says.

The look Corrin gives her, then, a smile that spread as quickly and effortlessly as a sunbeam, is enough to convince Azura of her decision – she looks happy near to bursting, in a way Azura is unfamiliar with.

* * *

That night, while she leans and sits and tries to be comfortable on a stone floor, cloaked in animal fur and warmed with a sparkling blue fire, Azura remembers Mikoto.

It’s a strange time to do it. An even stranger place.

But something about Mikoto is nagging away at her, an itch in the back of her mind. Her face, and her kind eyes, seem as fresh in her memory as the day she was introduced to her. Azura closes her eyes and remembers her, from her early years as a hostage. If only for peace of mind.

_“Azura!” She comes from down the hall, ceremonial dress still on, though she hikes it up to move faster. It looks quite funny. “There you are…I’ve been looking all over for you. Have you been well lately? I heard from Hinoka yesterday that someone was being terribly rude to you…” The queen trails off, concerned. She is always concerned, about one thing or another. It makes her look mournful._

_Azura wishes she’d been her missing daughter instead; wishes they had retrieved the right girl, because even if that left Azura in Nohr, at least Mikoto could be happy with her entire family around her._

_Still, the best she can offer is cooperation, so she smiles, and curtsies, then replies. “It was nothing so dramatic. What do you need?”_

_The queen looks embarrassed. It’s not very queenly. “It sounds strange, but…..would you allow me to braid your hair? Hinoka has cut hers, and Sakura’s is not quite as long……”_

_There’s silence for a beat, and then Azura regains her senses. “…Of course.”_

_“Thank you. Thank you so, so much..” Mikoto takes her into her chambers, and sits down expectantly at the head of the bed. Azura sits down in front of her, secretly thrilled. She has not felt this way, has not received this kind of affection in – in gods know how long, to be having this done to her now, as a prisoner, of all things, of all places – she tears up, but makes sure Mikoto cannot see._

_She combs through Azura’s hair first, gentle and steady. Mikoto talks while she does her work. Azura finds that it is incredibly easy to lose herself in the sweet notes, and on more than one occasion nearly dozes off altogether. It isn’t until she’s nearly finished that Azura retakes her mental capacities. She realizes with a start that she barely even checked the surroundings before she wandered in here. How could she be so careless?_

_Azura yawns and looks around sleepily, until a glittering stone catches her eye. Mikoto has just gotten up, expecting Azura to follow, when she wanders up to it on the desk, entranced. “Miss Mikoto…what’s this thing?”_

_“Oh.” She looks hesitant. Mournful again, for an instant, before she gets over it, as she always manages to. “That is a dragonstone. Do you know about the beastkin?”_

_“You mean, kitsunes and werewolves and stuff?” She asks dubiously._

_“Sort of. This helps them. The ones that are like dragons. Just like a beastrune helps a kitsune.”_

_Azura tips her head to one side. “Why are you keeping one? I thought manaketes all went away, a long time ago.”_

_Mikoto stares at the blue stone for a while, saying nothing._

_“I guess I just like the way it looks,” She admits, finally, setting it back down on the windowsill. “It does not do me much other good.”_

_“I think it’s pretty, too.”_

_“Thank you for that, dearest. Let’s go find Sakura now, shall we?”_

The fire cracks a little louder than it has been and suddenly Azura is back in a cave and dead to the kingdom of Hoshido again. But she did remember something, which is why she thinks her daydream occurred in the first place.

Corrin is lazily scraping at the cave walls with a softer rock; the most primitive art supplies possible. The walls are littered. For cave drawings, they have gotten quite detailed. She hums something with no particular tune while she draws on the wall.

Azura sits up from where she has been letting the wall support her weight. “Corrin, I was wondering about something….” She starts, and Corrin turns sets her rocks down and turns around, head cocked.

“What is it? I’ll answer anything I can.”

She purses her lips; there is a more than decent chance this might give rise to upsetting feelings for Corrin, but she should know enough to make the distinction. “Did you lose your dragonstone somehow? I haven’t seen you with one.”

Of every possible reaction or explanation, the last thing Azura expected Corrin to do was laugh. She blinks in her surprise, and the dragon-girl offers only a goofy grin in-between her laugh. “What’s a dragonstone?” She snickers. “Some sort of mystical treasure? I know there are rumors, but I don’t exactly have a world-class hoard up here.” There’s a moment where Corrin looks almost embarrassed, as if even her pointed ears have drooped. Her wings fold a fraction closer to her body. She scratches at the back of her neck and keeps talking over that. “Just a few cruddy trinkets and abandoned weapons. I guess I have an arrow collection, if you want to look at that…..”

“Well…” Azura trails off. This is certainly a puzzling response. If the dragonkin need the stone to help with their transformations, then it would make sense that Corrin is no longer able to return to “normal”, but if Corrin herself has no idea what a dragonstone is then how did she achieve a more humanlike look in the first place?

……are manaketes born as humans, or dragons first? Is Corrin even the same thing as a manakete? Are her parents? Does she have any?

Before Azura has time to go down the chicken-and-egg rabbit hole with herself, Corrin snaps her back into focus. “Eheh, I know I’m the one who offered and all, but it’s really not impressive. They’re all rusty or snapped. And I don’t have a bow.”

She gives a short laugh and shakes her head. “No, um, that’s not what I was thinking about.” Azura explains. If Corrin doesn’t know then the least Azura can do is try not to look any more like a fool than she must. “I was asking about a dragonstone because I heard that items like that can be used to help with transformations – like a catalyst. When you mentioned previously having more control over your image, I assumed…..”

“That I used to have one of those thingies and lost it.” Corrin concludes with a thoughtful expression. She seems flustered again. “Uh….wow. I didn’t know anything like that existed. That’s a little embarrassing, huh? I guess if anyone should know that kind of thing, it’s me..”

“I only know because someone I knew had one and explained it to me,” Azura admits with a somehow self-conscious laugh, tucking that damned strand of hair that always seemed to fall in front of her face back to its rightful position, “And it was an older artifact, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you have to do something specific to get a hold of them and people just don’t remember how anymore.”

Corrin nods along with agreement – exaggerated up and down motions and an appeasing smile to follow. “I guess, that makes sense. Bummer.”

Azura isn’t really sure how to continue the conversation, really, so she walks over to the cleaner-looking fur Corrin had offered her that morning and risks a look out the cave’s opening – darkness. Faintly, she can make out stars where the hill drops off. She’s a long way up. She turns to Corrin with a hesitant smile. “It’s getting late. I don’t suppose there is a specific place you would like me to sleep?”

“Oh!” Corrin spurs to alertness. “Yeah, follow me back here!” She pulls out a few more dead things from her fur pile, all skinned, and layers them in a more coherent manner. “One fur won’t cut it on a stone floor. I’ll just pile up everything I’ve got so you can be cozy.”

“What are you going to sleep on, then?” Azura asks, partly concerned and partly to distract herself from the fact that she will be sleeping on what is, essentially, a mound of carcasses.

Corrin waves it off and raps on her chest twice. “I’m a dragon. I can take a night on the floor! I’ll barely feel it through my scales, anyway…….”

Abruptly, Corrin stops adjusting the top of the fur pile and her shoulders slump; all of a sudden she has recoiled into herself. She looks back over to Azura with a guilty, hangdog sort of look on her face. “Um, actually, are you okay with that?”

“Okay with…?” She’s lost.

Corrin avoids eye contact and twiddles her fingers together shyly. “Um, y’know, th-the dragon thing. I scared you earlier, so –“

Oh, gods, now Azura feels bad. She shakes her head and throws her hands up, also shaking, as if she can dispel the thought through air. “No! No, no, you’re fine, this is your home, Corrin, I’m a visitor – I’m fine. Really. You don’t need to adjust your behavior for me.”

“A-are you sure?” She asks, still fidgeting. “I can sleep on the ground either way-“

Azura drags her hands across her face. “At this point, I will feel bad no matter what if you don’t just up and do it already,” She admits. “I feel I’ve burdened you by running away here.” Unwelcome in all countries, why would the wilderness be different?

All Azura does is cause trouble. And if she has not caused it, it follows her still. Even someone as considerate as Corrin……eventually, she’ll get completely sick of her and cast her aside, just like in Hoshido. Her eyes well up and Azura tries to wipe the tears before they can be fully realized, but that, too, is noticeable.

“You’re not a burden.” Corrin says firmly, with less hesitance or stammering than just about anything she has said to Azura thus far. “I am……happier than you could know, to have a visitor…..So I’ve been frantic about trying to adjust to your needs. I’m not unhappy or resentful at all, though. Please don’t think I’m just doing this to be polite.” She looks away. “Truth be told, it feels almost selfish, having you here like this. Does that make sense?”

It does, actually. Hearing Corrin say it out loud, Azura recalls, distinctly, the days when she was very, very young, and her mother was still alive – all the nobility and the concubines hated her, but some days, to keep public appearances good, she would be set loose in a room with her half siblings, and they would genuinely have fun. The circumstance was forced, but they enjoyed themselves.

Azura felt like the black sheep of the family, so any love she could get was valuable. Similarly, Corrin is isolated, so –

“Yes. I understand.” She says, then wrings her own hands and looks at Corrin. “I’m happy, too, though. Embarrassed by the doting, but happy.” Azura picks at one of her scratches from when she was pursued, seeking some way to avoid eye contact briefly. “So, um, if I try to stop feeling bad for dropping in on you like this, then…..you shouldn’t feel bad about having the company. If that makes sense.” She tacks onto the end hastily.

“Yeah!” Corrin says enthusiastically. Energetically, she seems unable to contain herself and springs forward towards Azura in a hug. Her arms are firm around her sides in a way that isn’t too strong, not enough to convey threat, but also not the shallow hug of a diplomat being forced to touch a dirty, outsider child. Azura doesn’t hug back, but it brings to the surface a blooming feeling in her chest.

She quite likes it.

Corrin sheepishly pulls away after a moment, and angles her wings back in a way that seems like a full-body shrug. “I-I’m glad we settled that. Please, sleep well and wake me if you need anything. I’ll just…”

She creeps over to the other end of the cave, and with the fire out, it’s too dark for Azura to see what’s going on. There’s a brief flare of some sort of blue-silver light, the most intense of fires, and Corrin’s shadow runs longer and taller against the wall.

Azura settles onto her makeshift bed, which is actually quite warm and softer than she thought it would be, and pulls her cleanest blanket over herself just as Corrin settles beside her, tucking her legs beneath her body like a cat and propping her head against the bed not far from Azura’s.

She thinks it may be the darkness of the cave that makes her bold, now, when she sticks an arm out and runs her hand across the smooth plate. The red lights just below the hooked part of the horns gleam brighter. Corrin makes a trilling sound and pulls her head back towards the floor, tail clattering against the floor in excitement. It takes a moment to stop, and Azura smiles and shuts her eyes.

Tomorrow she may have to attempt to settle her plans for the immediate future.

It’s not as daunting as it first seemed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the support and kind words on the first chapter!! i really appreciate it! I hope the second chapter lives up to the first.

When Azura wakes up the sun gleams through the cave entrance and casts a beam into the cavern like it is reaching for her – leaving a warm sliver on her makeshift bed where it has reached the farthest. It’s somewhat comforting. Corrin doesn’t seem to be inside, at the moment.

She gets up and stretches, feeling some things in her back pop into place. It wasn’t the most luxurious bed, but it was far from UN-comfortable. Azura wanders to the entrance and leans against the side for a moment, letting the sun warm her.

How ironic, that the safest place she could possibly be is guarded by a dragon. Perhaps there’s something to the children’s book cliché of princesses and dragons, after all. Still, safe is safe, and miles away from all cities with just Corrin for companionship sounds more and more like a good deal the more Azura thinks on it. Of course, there is always the matter of pulling her weight, but…..there must be _something_ she can do for Corrin. Some sort of commodity, however frivolous, that would be enough of an excuse to plead her case and ask to stay.

Her face reddens. It’s been one day, and already she plans on making her stay longer? Should she not consider other options?

Now pacing, Azura absentmindedly winds a long lock of hair around her finger, then unravels it, the rewinds it again, as she paces the entrance. Corrin says she isn’t a burden, she reasons, but then the anxious part of her chimes in with ‘ _Of course she’s just saying that to make you feel better, you know’_ , and she has to argue herself on the point all over again. She ends up compromising.

As of now, she is very much welcomed, but she needs to take care not to overextend on that welcome, is all. Which means pulling her weight.

The only problem is that she has no value in terms of comfort. Azura certainly can’t gather more food than Corrin, or defend the home better. She takes up the space on her furs. It just seems….hopeless.

Sighing, Azura brings a hand to her chin. Perhaps she could just…entertain her? Her voice is good. She can dance. Would Corrin take that the wrong way? Azura envisions, briefly, what could be: Corrin comes home, tired, bloodied. Azura is waiting for her and sings a song, possibly not the song she learned from her mother but something like it, something adjacent to it. One or two rounds, then she sits, and there is nothing to speak about – no current events, and at some point Azura will surely run out of music.

It just doesn’t seem like it will work.

Drawing Azura from her thoughts is a loud clanging noise, and a subservient, magic-sounding warping noise, as if matter has been filled faster than it can move out of the way, a vacuum of air. There is a frustrated growl. It makes Azura raise an eyebrow, before she rounds the corner.

Corrin is angling herself against the wall, and she has her horns still – at first glance, that is all she retained, but her hands are black as soot and too long and sharp to be humanoid. She appears to be wrangling with the stone wall, and it takes Azura second to realize why.

Her horn is stuck.

Unable to help herself, Azura lets out a little snort, and covers her mouth. Immediately, Corrin stops struggling and stands stock still with her head still crammed against the wall. She has gone completely pink. “A-azura…good morning! Isn’t it…..a lovely day….?”

“Yes, it’s wonderful out today. I’ve missed the sun shining this way while I was in Nohr.” She replies, in a conversational tone, as she walks deftly up to Corrin and tries not to stare too directly. “I can’t help but notice you are a little hung up at the moment, though.”

“Uggggghhhhh.” She groans in response, and raps her head against the side of the mountain once more. “Okay, yeah. I’m….maybe, a little, stuck. Sort of.” She sulks against the wall, and crosses her arms. It’s an adorably pouty expression.

She covers her mouth again for another stifled giggle. “Do I want to know how you got stuck?” While she’s asking, though, she steps closer and leans over Corrin’s shoulder in an attempt to help – she grabs the caught horn and tries to un-hook it from the crack it was wedged into.

“Eheheh, funny story.” Corrin says sheepishly. “I was, um, trying to dull them, because, uh, y’know, presentability, and stuff, and it was going too slow on the trees, so I tried to grind them down on this rock and got stuck in a crack I accidentally made bigger and _then_ I try to turn back to fix it and I’m still stuck!! Just my damn luck that this stupid thing had to stick around.”

“Mhm…” Azura hums, and then smiles when she sees where it’s been caught. She pushes Corrin’s head down, noting for a moment that her hair is surprisingly soft, before she pulls her horn from the crevice. “Got it!”

Flustered, Corrin ducks her head. “Thank you!”

Azura blinks. “Um, of course. Why were you trying to dull them, anyways? I got the impression yesterday they were useful in killing prey.”

“Oh, uh, no real reason, really. I just, figured it was better safe than sorry, y’know? I was planning on showing you around the woods, and, um, you’re tall-ish, and I didn’t want to like…..turn around and bonk you on the head or anything, y’know?” She scratches at the back of her head, still flustered and searching for a way to let off her embarrassment. “It’s a bit of a dumb thing to worry about, but I had so much extra time this morning it’s no surprise I went and did something stupid like this.”

“I can duck. You don’t need to trouble yourself.” She says, with a shake of her head. “I’m not sure what exactly those horns are made of, but if you’re bumping on accident they can’t be too harmful.”

They look more like antlers on her the way she is now, the part that usually hooked around the faceplate above her head and creating a crescent of sorts into the larger section. Azura can see the roughed up sections, smudged with dirt, and has to roll her eyes. Didn’t Corrin promise to stop trying too hard to accommodate her?  

She laughs softly, and looks away yet again. “I know, I know. I should tone it down. I’m just so….so – excited!” The word bursts out of her like something that has been bottled with great pressure inside, and now that the cork has flown off Corrin looks at Azura with an intense expression, eyes brimming with energy, burning. “It’s been forever and I have so many lovely spots to show you! There’s the grotto, and the abandoned building, and the waterfall, and the hutches I made a long time ago, and the hunting grounds, and, and –“ She breaks off into a happy sigh.

“I just can’t wait to talk again. Or not, even.” She says, almost wistfully, but then she begins to bound back with her energy again. “Just having the company…. Makes me so happy!” Corrin beams a sharp-toothed grin, and her laugh is just the right sound to set Azura’s heart aflutter.

Ah. This is embarrassingly fast, even for her. Azura returns the smile shyly, looking away after a moment’s eye contact. “I’d be happy to visit with you. Where to first?”

She grins again. “Let’s go to the grotto!”

Corrin beckons her then, holding out a hand that Azura takes even though it is strange and hard as things are now. She finds she doesn’t mind, terribly, because as soon as they’re connected, even though a simple locking of hands, Corrin bursts out running down the hill and Azura has to follow with the same frantic speed lest she be dragged down.

She’s laughing; Azura nearly trips over a deeply-rooted plant and asks for an explanation in halting, panted breaths – “Why,” huff, “are we,” huff, “Running?!”

“Because it’s fun!” Corrin replies breezily, barely watching where she’s putting her feet. At the very least, it hasn’t gotten so steep they’d slip and roll down completely. “I won’t let us trip. Running downhill like this is kind of thrilling, right?”

“You’re crazy,” Azura breathes out, even as she kind of understands the rush. “We’re definitely –“ They leap together over a divot in the hillside, and the grass they land on is thick and soft against her feet. It gets torn up from the next pivot. “Going to trip at some point!”

Corrin snickers again. “Nahh. We’re basically there already! Just keep up~!”

This girl is going to run her ragged. Even as Azura sighs mentally and thinks that, it’s not too bad. There really is only a short way to go, and Corrin must have known which path she could take to avoid steep falls if they should trip – so they hit the base of the mountain and the forest there in time. Corrin pulls Azura eagerly along the base to a river, which leads up to a conclave, of sorts, near the center of the mountain, and Azura can make out a shaded area, walled in. They are able to slip through the trees in the way of an otherwise large gap – they aren’t terribly dense, but do a more than fair job of hiding the area.

The trees grow well into the little enclosure, breaking off for a small open space in the center, in the shade of the mountain and the trees. Azura, seeing little need to wait, collapses onto the grass there. “And here I thought I was done running,” She sighs, but she’s happy, really, so Azura catches her breath on the ground while Corrin sits down leisurely beside her. “How are you not tired?”

“It’s just a short run for me.” She shrugs. “Honestly, I try to get around as fast as I can so I can explore without straying far enough to not be able to make my way back in a day.” Corrin yawns and stretches herself out beside her, arms crossed behind her head.

Azura raises an eyebrow. “Can’t you fly, though?”

Corrin rolls over onto her side so she can look at Azura more directly. “I guess, but it’s not like that’s not tiresome too…..I’m really not that good in the air.” She admits, face red. “I end up using my wings more for simple gliding, if I’m being honest. I make up for it in jump height.”

She laughs. “When you say it like that, I imagine you’re like a bouncy ball.”

“A bouncy ball?! I’m _so_ much cooler than a bouncy ball,” Corrin retorts, laughing herself, and shoves Azura a bit with her shoulder. “And I hit the ground slower, too.”

“Oh, if you say so.” Azura says in response, with a mischievous nudge back.

They say nothing for a short while, and Azura is near content just to doze off in the clearing. How long has it been since she took a nap on her own time..? And the heaviness from the sprint down had settled into her legs, so surely, it wouldn’t be too hard….to just……..

She dozes off, and thinks that Corrin has done the same beside her, body going slack. This is a type of companionship, too, she supposes.

* * *

Certainly, any sleep on the ground is destined to be brief and easily interrupted, but Azura only finds herself disturbed when Corrin squirms, then goes rigid beside her, bumping Azura (she assumes accidentally) with a haphazard movement of her leg. “Is something the matter?”

Rather than respond, Corrin rises to a seated position slowly, and turns her head - only several degrees at a time, side to side, like a periscope – to evaluate the surrounding clearing. Azura tries again. “Corrin?”

She thinks this time she gets the flick of one of her ears in response, but the next thing she knows Corrin gets to her feet in a squat, hands on the ground, fixes a hard stare in one direction, and growls in a low rumble. Her nails pierce the dirt, blackened claws finding purchase.

Azura wisely takes this time to step back for a second, and Corrin’s low growl escalates to a snarl – she arches her back, as if she is being plucked at by some unseen hand and has rooted herself so firmly that all it can do is pull her from the middle. Two hard rods burst from the blades of her back, and elongate and fill in until they are wings. She bats them, currents swiping at the grass, and pulls up a chunk of dirt.

“ _Ooouuuuut……!”_ She snarls, in a decidedly un-Corrin like voice, and the next thing Azura knows Corrin has torn up all the ground around her in a mad dash for the direction she’d been staring.

A few yards off, there is something shaped like a man, but it is impossibly big, and its limbs are grey and swollen, like they are liable to explode. Veins and muscles pulsate and Azura gets the distinct impression of wanting to throw up.

Whatever this thing is –

It’s bad.

Azura wishes quite dearly that she had her naginata right now.

In the meantime, Corrin roars and launches herself at it, and it responds with a warped scream of its own and swings at her in a near-spasmic manner, off balance, without any real accuracy but devastating power. The dirt flies up in a slew where it struck and she can see a crater left behind – Corrin tears at its overextended arm with claws, and the bulging thing, despite all expectations, somehow fails to deflate when punctured. The scratches she leaves are nothing to sneeze at, but nothing on the level needed to kill it.

It shakes with another scream and Corrin is thrown off its arm where she has latched desperately onto it with her claws. She manages to land upright and runs again, catching it in the midsection and drawing blood but still nothing substantial – having run beneath it, it slams its behemoth fists down before Corrin can get out of the way.

A glancing blow alone is enough to send her flying.

“Corrin!” Azura yelps, in a stupid, _stupid_ display, because now it has turned to face her and if a fucking _dragon_ can’t take a hit from this thing, then Azura is not long for this world having caught its attention weaponless.

She backs up and searches for anything she can do, scrambling until she finds a rock. It lunges towards her and Azura skids out of the way and throws her stone – it tinks helplessly off its iron mask.

It swings again, this time missing narrowly while Azura runs for the left. Isn’t it funny how fear has restored strength to her legs? She’d laugh if she wasn’t near crying. Azura scrambles for another rock. It swings and misses so narrowly she feels it brush past her hair and –

It’s snagged.

Oh, gods, her hair is snagged on the gauntlet. This is it. She’s finished.

The monster rears back, and then is forced onto the ground, Azura’s hair giving resistance but, after losing some strands, slipping loose. Corrin set upon it a second time, coming for the face, and is clawing desperately at the mask. It swats at her with a hand; she hops over it and sinks her teeth into the skin of its neck where a black ichor leaks from the wound and goes up in smoke.

There’s the screech of something hard against metal as Corrin tries again to pry the mask off of it. It screams again and Azura scuttles back still on the floor in time to see Corrin, yanking the steel off and going up in a small burst of that black, foreboding smoke.

She hisses and tears off in the other direction – Azura sees her opposite the decaying creature on the clearing, looking strange herself: two shining, orange-red eyes with pupils slit to almost nothing boring into the carcass like she could make it explode by will alone, her angular steel horns fouled with black blood, red dripping from her own wound and lip curled around sharp teeth in a constant growl. Her wings are warped around her body and her long hands that are beginning to fail in their resemblance are hooked and pawlike.

Azura is breathing heavily. “What,” She breathes, staring at the fading corpse. The black smoke gets thinner the higher it goes, but the taint certainly lingers around where it used to be. Some of it still disintegrates. “..was that….?”

The description seems familiar now that she is out of danger – hulking, grey mass with chains and gauntlets – and Azura thinks that she must have seen a faceless, although she can’t be sure.

Looking to Corrin for an answer reveals nothing; in fact, Corrin is another cause for concern because those eyes are focused on her now and Azura dislikes the hostility she can see.

Corrin releases another low, warning growl. Azura puts her hands up quickly. “It’s dead,” She says slowly, “Calm down-“

She leaps at her. Azura is thankful she’s already on the ground, but her head is slammed into the base of a tree. Blinking away the momentary starry spots, she can make out Corrin staring her down, trembling with _something_. Her wings twitch; her eyes oscillate rapidly as the pupils begin to expand, only to constrict back into their tight reptilian slits. From Corrin’s wounded forehead, a bead of her blood falls onto Azura’s face. She can’t even muster up the courage to wipe it away – she is stunned numb with fear.

Unable to bear looking, Azura grimaces and hopes that whatever comes it will be either quick or painless.

Corrin hovers for a moment longer, taking a deep breath, before collapsing on top of her in a heap. Her head falls just past Azura’s shoulders, luckily sparing her from the curved horns.

Azura lets loose an audible sigh of relief. “Corrin?”

“….oooof.” She sits up and rubs at her face with a fortunately more human hand. The black stuff has, for the most part, dissipated, but when Corrin’s hand comes back red she panics, leaning back in alarm and then looking to Azura. “Gods!! Are you okay?!”

“It’s not my blood,” She replies and runs a hand through her hair – and winces when she reaches the back of her head, which will definitely be sore later – before she gestures to Corrin. “That thing hit you pretty hard.”

She looks entirely unconvinced, eyes watering. “B-but your cheek…!”

Azura wipes it off with a hand. “Not mine. See?”

“But I was crouched above you….” She mumbles, eyes downcast. “I did more after I killed the…..the thingy…..”

“What _was_ that?” She asks, part as a distraction and part out of genuine curiosity. "Was it a faceless?"

Corrin frowns, eyebrows knit together, and looks over to where the iron mask is lying on the ground, body missing. “I don’t know….but it gave me the creeps. Something about its aura……it just wasn’t _right_. It made me feel weird.”

“I think I understand what you mean…..But, you seriously mean to say you have never encountered one?” She seemed to understand that taking off the mask would kill it, but at the same time, there’s not any real reason to lie.

“I’ve never seen any of those things before.” She says seriously. “If I had, I wouldn’t have taken you down here. Honestly, usually I only ever see a few squirrels and birds. Maybe _once_ I saw a fox and her kits.” Corrin frowns. “Azura. Be honest with me. Did I…..?”

There’s no way to respond truthfully and delicate enough for Azura’s tastes, so she puts a hand on Corrin’s shoulder and tries to mitigate the information – “You didn’t actually do anything to me. I just hit my head on the tree, is all.”

“But I did jump on you.” She says.

“Yes.”

Corrin looks ashamed, and bows her head. “…Thanks. I’m sorry for having a stupid idea. Let’s just head back now.” She seems put-out, which is unsurprising. On the trip back up, she’s lethargic.

She wishes there was something better she could have told her.

* * *

Back up the mountain, in the cave that Azura will tentatively consider her home base, for now, if Corrin will have her – they set up another fire and Corrin points out that she isn’t entirely sure Azura ate yesterday.

“I’ll admit I hadn’t really thought about it….” She says sheepishly, but now that she is, her stomach is raging at her. One day she can – and has – gone without food and not had problems, but two days would push it. “Yesterday I was so focused on fleeing that I wasn’t worried about food, but now that you mention it….”

Corrin nods in understanding. “I still have some of the deer from yesterday, and can cook it for you…but it’s far from a seasoned meal. Do you know anything about plant life up here? I don’t know what is and isn’t safe to eat….I’ve just been sort of guessing, and I don’t know if my luck is related to my bloodline..”

She shrugs. “The basics, I think. I remember Kaze gave me a lesson on it, but I wish I’d paid more attention, now…. I remember a few edible plants native to Hoshido.”

“I’ll work on the meat. If you want to look for anything else, there’s bound to be some things near the pond that are good.” Corrin turns, already trying to figure out the best way to go about moving the remaining deer meat. “Shout if you get lost, okay?” She calls over her shoulder.

“Okay. Thank you.” And Azura is on her way, though her steps are slow. The pond is clear by daylight, and she does, in fact, see some of the plants Kaze told her about in the surrounding glade – while she tries to pick and prepare them to the best of her abilities, she mulls over her situation, as she’s prone to doing.

It feels like she is doomed to watch everyone else’s problems, unable to fix them. She can’t stop the war in Nohr and Hoshido, or unseat Anankos from the throne of Valla. She can’t return the lost princess to Hoshido. She can’t return sanity to King Garon.

She can’t do anything.

Up here with Corrin, she is watching yet another problem unfold, and feeling helpless again. There must be something she can do….

Maybe it would help to know what things were like “before” she was a dragon. But can she really ask that sort of thing…?

Full of questions, and of course a healthy dose of nerves, Azura comes back to the cave with a few handfuls of plants. Corrin is sitting by the front poking a fire with a stick, occasionally flipping over the meat.

“Hey, Azura. Do you want those warm or raw?”

“I can cook them myself. Thank you.” She settles down and starts to roast some, setting the others aside.

They sit in the quiet for a while and Azura looks up once only to make eye contact with Corrin, who flushes and looks down quickly, so Azura does the same. Embarrassing.

Corrin works up the nerve to speak again faster. “Umm, Azura.”

“Yes?” She looks up, and Corrin is avoiding eye contact, playing it off as paying extra attention to the meat.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t mean to….uh….get like that.”

“I believe I’ve already told you it’s not your fault,” She says, not unkindly, and pulls back the stalk of the plant she was working on. She sends an encouraging look her way. “But I was thinking about that, actually.”

Corrin blinks, red eyes reflective in the fire. “Oh?”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” She starts, and has to look down and fiddle with her hair to garner the courage to press on – “How did this happen? You mentioned not knowing you were a dragon until a certain period in your life, so the two may be related……”

She looks away for a good while, face still flushed scarlet from embarrassment. “……I suppose you have a right to know after I snapped at you like that…..”

“No,” Azura says quickly. “No, no. Don’t feel pressured. You did not ask me why or what I fled from, and I will not ask for information you are not ready to give. I was simply curious.”

“It’s okay, I’ve made my peace with it.” Corrin says, waving it off with a hand. That doesn’t seem particularly true, but Azura recognizes that Corrin will feel guilty if she does not tell her now, so she lets it pass. As long as she is respectful of what she hears, nothing should cause a problem. Corrin will at least know she can stop if she gets uncomfortable.

Corrin pulls the last of the meat off the fire and looks up with a grin. “Why don’t we eat while I think of the best place to start?”

Azura nods and scoots herself closer to the fire, and Corrin passes her a dented plate with some meat on it and she sets the greens down herself. “Alright. Please, stop if you are uncomfortable. And ask me anything you like in return.”

Corrin shoots her a grateful look and nods, before inhaling deeply and leaning back, staring up at the cave ceiling while she starts. “I grew up in Nohr……

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand scene. You know that thing in movies where two characters sit around a fire talking and then it pans out to a flashback?? yeah, that. not sure if i nailed the mood or not, but i think that enjoyable quiet times are kind of par for the course with azura if that makes sense?? she just seems like the type. She's always got so much crap on her plate that she's really not as talkative as everyone else, both by nature and the way she had to grow up w the whole valla situation, i think. hence sleepy lesbians and attentive listening. obviously. We also get our first taste of action in this chapter, which is nice. It's not exactly the same as combat with weapons, but i hope i did it justice!
> 
> more than half of the next chapter is already done because i have been typing this story up like a madwoman all week but im going to try and limit myself to an actual schedule so i don't accidentally hit a block and screw myself lmao. Next chapter should be some exposition and then the beginning of some Plot
> 
> thank you for reading again!! ur comments give me l i f e,,,


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a few days longer than expected! I was having some trouble deciding where to cut what i had; this chapter was huge initially and it got to the point that i was able to cut it into two complete chapters, haha. I think I chose a decent spot to put the break in to keep both of them about equal in length. Thank you again for all of your comments and kudos from last chapter, it means a lot to me and I hope this next chapter doesn't disappoint either!

There was a man standing in front of her. It’s just about the earliest thing Corrin can recall, this man, and even though she says she remembers his existence, as a presence, that’s the best she gets. She says that when she thinks of him, this mystery man, his edges and face are so clouded over that it’s like a hazy dream, and he is behind a hundred layers of fog.

He said something to her and Corrin recalls the firm hand on her head more than anything else. There isn’t much memory until she sees a hail set upon him and another hand, less kind than the first, set upon her head. She said she didn’t like it too much.

Corrin was six years old, and she was having a nightmare. When she woke, her older brother was watching her with a somehow pitying look, like he understood what she’d seen.

A year slips past without much incident – Corrin says it was the most disgustingly mundane year she can recall, before she had retainers and before her siblings truly interacted with her – so the arrival of two girls from the ice tribe was a breath of fresh air, quite literally. Corrin, more proficient at smells than names at that point, said they smelled the way it felt to stick her head out the castle window.

Corrin rarely had tantrums, but, of course, one or two did come to pass.

The first big one had been when she was told she was no longer allowed to see her friend Silas, who was given a pass to attend (supervised) playdates with Corrin. He, apparently, broke the rules and snuck off to see her outside of those times and, despite all her pleas, Corrin could not see him again.

She cried and screamed and pitched as big a fit as she could, but nothing came of it, until about a half hour after they broke the news when she had a coughing fit. Gunther had told her it was because she ‘cried herself hoarse’, but that wasn’t how it felt.

Something seemed stuck in her throat, she just couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of her. It clung to the insides of her chest and throat like it wasn’t yet ready to be released.

Her next tantrum was at the age of eight, when Elise was temporarily banned from visiting because she had tripped up the stairs and needed to learn to walk better. Again, she threw a fit, only calming when Camilla took her into her room and smoothed her hair over in that particular way she liked. Corrin leaned into the touch and let out a long, long sigh.

A flicker of light escaped her body as the temperature rose just a bit.

Finally, when Corrin was twelve, her maid and friend Felicia broke one too many plates. Corrin was old enough then that she can remember roughly what she’d said. “You can’t make Felicia work somewhere else!!!” She protested, hugging the pink haired girl in question. “She only dropped a few plates!!”

Felicia gave her a grateful, if slightly uncomfortable look as this all transpired. At some point she was dismissed and ran off to the comfort of her sister, Flora.

Gunter and Xander were noticeably less good natured about the entire thing, both frowning the exact same frown. Had she not been so upset, she might have thought it was funny how closely her brother seemed to be trying to emulate the old man.

“Corrin, it’s for everyone here’s safety –“ Gunter had said, moving for her with his arms outstretched, prepared to kneel down to her level to placate her.

She screamed as loud as she could, not caring about the way everyone in the room winced and covered their ears. While it had technically had the intended effect it’d gone a step further than she had ever intended.

Something came out with it. Clawing through the back of her throat, hot, shining blue embers came. Not many. Not enough to cause damage, and yet – when they fizzled out at the foot of Gunther’s armor, everyone had turned to look at her.

And she had no idea as to whether it was good or not.

They took her to father and he demanded she show him what she had done, but she was too scared – trapped, pinned where she stood, something felt off but she couldn’t place it and it made her skin crawl with anxiety – so he waved his hand and had Iago take care of it.

He ‘took care of it’ until her skin burned and her throat was hoarse again, but managed to get her to do it once more – even one better than that, in fact. As a few straggling embers escaped her mouth with a cough, two frail, bony wings spread from her back. It hurt, but only for a small instant.

It was enough to make Garon happy. He had her tied to the column near the base of his throne, then called in his aides and her siblings for a meeting. He gestured to her as she talked, and she shrank away from their stunned looks, making a weak attempt to cover herself with wings that were too small. “The Hoshidans had intended this child to be a weapon against us,” He’d said. “Had we let her grow, she could have obtained the power to destroy us all.”

“She doesn’t look very dangerous to me,” Xander pointed out astutely. Camilla nodded at the statement, looking over his shoulder with some degree of distress. Corrin squirmed some more in her bounds and started to cry again, but her throat was still hoarse so it was a pathetic cough more than anything else.

“And she never will be.” The king replied, with the sort of finality that let Corrin know that things were not in her favor. She was too young to understand this fully, but when he nodded at his aide, the big one with the axe, she knew she had to get away from her post. She shrieked and tugged at the rope with all the strength in her body.

It wasn’t enough, but when the axe fell, by some miracle, it only just barely scraped by her arm, skating against a hard plate instead of flesh and cutting the rope that bound her. She seized the opportunity and ran, slipping through a long, long alley beneath the castle – Silas had slipped her through it, however many years ago.

When she made it outside, she jumped, and found herself carried over the wall.

Corrin ran into the wilds without pause until she was so far away that her feet bled and she could no longer recognize even the type of grass she stood on. Until her breath came like true fire, burning her throat on each inhalation. Until she couldn’t force herself to move anymore.

She stayed there.

* * *

The story of her youth clearly took a lot out of Corrin, and Azura knows it from the way her eyes darted around with every mention of a name – as if she was worried they were going to pop out of the cave walls and set upon her again. Her shoulders would stiffen at times, and Azura would lay a hand on the other girl’s knee to let her know she was there before Corrin continued.

Her efforts to keep her calm do not go unnoticed, either, Corrin giving her a grateful, tired smile after the tale comes to a close. “I’m sorry for…dumping all of that on you,” She says quietly, though not enough to diminish the gratitude in her voice. “You’ve been…very kind to me, today. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s nothing. I’m grateful you trust me enough to help with such a heavy burden.” Azura responds, with a delicate touch to Corrin’s head that makes her crane her neck so she can better receive it. Her hair, against all odds, isn’t too tangled, so Azura runs her hands through it while they continue their conversation. “So, you believe that is the reason behind your situation?”

Corrin nods, looking mopey even with her head practically in Azura’s lap. “If I was really born to tear apart Nohr, it makes sense I would not have some way to better control myself.”

“That does make sense, but….” Azura trails off with a frown. Corrin is young – she thinks, still isn’t sure, but if she mentions growing up with Elise still a toddler then it fits, because as far as Azura can tell Elise is still quite young – so the problem with this idea is that Mikoto would never allow it.

There must be some kind of misunderstanding, or something she and Corrin have missed….

“But?” Corrin asks, looking hopeful – she wants that to be a lie more than anything, Azura can tell.

Azura sighs, bringing a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I simply cannot see Queen Mikoto approving a plan like that – she is a peace loving ruler. If she intended to carry out the war between Nohr and Hoshido, it certainly wasn’t clear to me.” She explains, gesturing offhandedly in the direction she assumes Hoshido to be in. “She is the one that puts the barrier up that causes Nohrians to lose their will to fight. Why would she go from the defensive to the offensive? And with a plan that puts a child in danger, no less…..”

Corrin hums, a low note that swings up at the end, almost cheerfully. “Well, whatever the reason, it’s why I think I get like this. It’d be cool to have a catalyst or a dragon stone or whatever it’s called……but I don’t think I ever had one to start with.”

Azura bites her lip, chewing thoughtfully while she tries to wrap her mind around it - not having control over one’s own body, fearing that she will make a grave mistake while she is not truly herself. It seems an unfair burden to lay on Corrin; Corrin who is sweet and holds her hand and runs down hills, Corrin who would welcome a stranger into her home, Corrin who is always worried over her safety – it does not sit well with Azura.

She has to do _something_. For once, something. How could she sit here and passively offer her condolences if she cannot take the time to think more first? How could Azura live with herself then?

Beside her, Corrin is dozing, still relishing in the soft touch of Azura’s hand on her hair, eyes drooping with sleep and the fire no doubt spurring her closer. The way she rests her head on her lap and her eyes go half-lidded isn’t lost to her. It’s endearing.

Azura reaffirms herself in her conviction that something must be done to repay her.

“Corrin,” She says, taking in a deep breath, because she knows that what she suggests is the worst, most suicidal idea she has had so far, nearly as bad as the night she wanted to cave and just tell her Hoshidan ‘siblings’ about Valla, even if she died, so that they could know and live a better life for it – This idea is just as brash, and just as stupid, but the payoff, to her, seems impossibly worth it and at least death isn’t immediate or certain – “I may know where to find you a dragon stone.”

Unsurprisingly, Corrin sits up immediately. “You do?” She asks, clearly dumbfounded. “But I thought you said-“

“They’re rare and hard to come by. Don’t be mistaken.” Azura interrupts, twirling a long strand of hair around her finger, looking pointedly away from Corrin. “But I have seen one. The problem is getting it for you.”

Corrin still seems perplexed. “You can be sure it’s in the same place? How?”

Azura laughs, just once. “It’s in the Hoshidan Palace. If somebody stole it, I can assure you it was swiftly returned to its place.”

“It’s in….the _palace_ ,” Corrin seeks clarification, having gone just a little bit pale at the idea. “You mean, in the capital city, surrounded by people. And guards.”

She nods. “I can’t say that getting it will be easy. But I want to help.”

“I dunno,” Corrin says, nervously, looking out the open mouth of the cave towards the valley below, mouth drawn to a frown. “That’s….dangerous…..and I’d have to leave the mountain for a while….”

“But the risk is worth it, is it not?” Azura doesn’t know by what force she is made bold, but she holds tight to this small current of bravery as long as it will carry her. “Once you have the dragonstone, you won’t have to worry about it ever again….you might be able to return to a more human state, and hide well enough to pass among humans.”

Corrin’s eyes gleam in that optimistic, Corrin-like way, and Azura feels like they are tiny red spotlights on her. “You mean that?”

“I believe it.” She says after a beat, raising her head so she may meet Corrin’s eyes. “Truly.”

“Do you think we could find it and live somewhere nice after?” She asks, seeming genuinely enchanted by the prospect. “If I could get by in a village, maybe, I could get a house and a real bed…..and fruit! I miss peaches.”

Azura rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure peaches are one of the most alluring parts of civilization.”

“I’m serious!” Corrin replies, though it’s all in good humor. “If I can, I want to have a life like that! With peaches and nice beds and neighbors. And, uh, i-if you wanted to, you could keep staying with me.” She’s flustered, so she won’t make eye contact anymore, but she does continue to talk. “I mean, f-for however long you planned on staying up here.”

She really considers it. Yes, she is probably recognizable, but there is always a chance….if they simply find a village remote enough, on Hoshido’s side of the border so that they can farm well….

“I’d love that.” Azura says sincerely. Corrin grabs her hands and pulls her in closely. Feeling the warm hands on her own, and the breath on her shoulder, Azura tenses and grows red against her will. This type of intimacy is something new altogether.

Corrin has made up her mind, in either case. “Then that’s what we’ll do!”

Azura nods slowly. “We’re going to have to try and stay as inconspicuous as possible on our approach to the palace. I’m not exactly welcomed in that city, and for your part, I feel a dragon might arouse suspicion…..”

She flushes, a deep and noticeable red. “Umm, right. I’ll need to at least get rid of my horns, but…how exactly am I going to travel?”

“I can probably get a hold of some cloaks at the right market.” Azura muses, though she trails off into a frown when she remembers that her pockets were…more or less emptied, by Nohrian robbers. “I will need some way to get them without resorting to theft, though. Do you think you could wait in the forest while I attempt to earn some gold?”

“Uh, sure, probably. Where are you thinking you’re going to do this? When?” She asks curiously, head cocked. They’ve calmed down a bit now from their enthusiastic, promise-making high, but she still has nervous energy, obviously.

Azura crosses her arms and thinks. “I can probably make some money performing as a singer somewhere. We may have to get closer to a city, but I think you should be able to remain hidden not far away. Hoshido’s cities have a way of interacting with nature quite seamlessly.” She says with a hum. “Usually there’s a decent sized group of trees around, and nobody will be able to see you there at night.”

Corrin persists, still looking a bit anxious. “We’re coming back up here if you can’t manage it all in one night, right?”

She nods. “I doubt I will. Unfortunately, we will likely need two. I.....“ Azura stops herself with a sigh, and looks away. There’s not really a simple way to explain why she also needs a cloak when she is not as clear of a threat as Corrin might appear to strangers – She fiddles with a lock of hair, twisting the ends between her fingers and feeling the smoothness. “I am very noticeable, and knew many people in Hoshido. It was part of why I had to leave the country.”

“Did something bad happen…?” Corrin asks cautiously, leaning in a little more. “Don’t your friends miss you?”

“Although I was treated well, I did not have many friends.” Azura explains, and she can see Corrin having difficulty wrapping her mind around it so she tries to wave it off; it doesn’t affect her too deeply and hopefully Corrin might realize that if she understands the background. “I’m afraid my presence had….unpopular, political implications. The family I lived with was kind. They simply couldn’t shelter me longer than they did.”

“Bleh,” Corrin says, bluntly, and falls to the cave floor. “They ruin everything, huh. The nobility in Nohr were real stinkers about that kind of thing too.”

Azura cracks a smile. “I guess it truly doesn’t matter where in the world you live – there will always be someone that believes they’re better.”

Corrin rolls her eyes and grumbles something incoherent from the floor. It doesn’t actually sound like words. Azura reaches over and comforts her, reaching into her hair and running her fingers through it repetitively, sorting strands between them.

“Wait, wait,” Corrin says slowly, and sits up with a wide yawn at Azura’s pause and removal of her hand. She rubs her eyes. “I’m going to fall asleep at this rate.”

“Oh,” Azura blinks in her surprise. “You want to begin tonight?” She knew Corrin was excited, but this was more eager than she’d expected, truthfully.

Corrin’s cheeks go red, a fact undisguised by the flickering fire in front of them. “Well, uh, they probably have food, a-at wherever you’re going to sing, and I noticed you weren’t really….into…..the meal tonight……which is all I can provide…………” She trails off for longer and longer periods of time, face growing redder and redder the more silence passes them by.

Truthfully, Azura is a little embarrassed too, and that leaves them at a bit of a standstill until Corrin stands up quite abruptly. “ _Okay!_ ” She says, overly loud, maybe, but it’s a relief anyways. “Let’s get a move on, okay? I’ll keep the path clear and wait for you outside the village.”

“Alright. I’ll think of what to perform on the way down.”

* * *

They don’t really name the establishments in Hoshido: it’s more of a generally understood thing that buildings that have been a certain type of business for ages will always be that type of business. There’s a signpost on the building in the closest village that indicates it is a bar and lodgings and so Azura will move based on that.

Corrin is left on the outskirts, peeking shyly around the corner of the furthest building with explicit instructions to wait there, and avoid anyone who isn’t Azura. Her eyes are gleaming, down in the valley, and Azura figure’s its partly because there is light to reflect and partly because it’s darker. It gives a catlike quality to them, little red blinking dots not far from town. She seems overly concerned, if anything.

Azura rounds a corner, now in the space between two buildings in the city, and leaves her sight. She heads into the brewery with her back straight, doing her best to stay calm and remind herself she’s far from the capital, so they might not recognize her. She draws attention; that’s expected, though. She has a bit of a stand-out look, blue hair and bare feet and all.

She walks to the counter where the bartender has already been alerted to her presence and intention. He stands there with an interested look behind the counter, hands on hardwood, nails picking at the grooves. He’s older and portly, but his posture is downright fatherly. Azura doesn’t think this man will be reluctant to hear her out. “May I help you?”

“I was interested in performing as a singer and dancer, sir.” Azura says quietly, playing the part. She fidgets with her hands behind her back, one foot twists around the other’s ankle in a nervous rotation, her eyes are downcast. She’s shy. An irresistibly odd traveler. “I was traveling this way from the capital and robbed on the way, so I’d hoped to earn some of that back.”

He nods and acts as if he’s not sure he’ll hire her, which is Azura’s sign that she’s already gotten the job. “Can you sing?” He asks, leaning on the hardwood. “I can pay for for entertainment, but it needs to fit the atmosphere.”

Azura straightens up a little. “I can sing most anything you’d ask me to. And I will not request pay until I have done my job.”

“You’re on, then.” He says almost dismissively, but he seems pleased enough. “Talk to Kazahana. She can help you prepare a ground to act as a stage and ready the musicians.”

“You have musicians?” That’s unexpected. Azura is surprised he does not already have a singer if that’s the kind of atmosphere he likes to set.

The owner shakes his head. “I have instruments and a tired staff. It’s not too busy to manage myself – if you are truly a good singer I wouldn’t want to take away from the experience.”

She offers up a small smile. “Thank you. Please, don’t give anybody more work for this, though. You are very kind.”

He waves her off to go prepare with a good natured smile, and Azura is so unused to the friendliness here as opposed to in Nohr that it truly astounds her for a while. Still, there’s no sense pondering a lucky break. She seeks out Kazahana – a waitress – and asks where she could set up for a song. Some minutes pass – maybe ten, or twenty, it’s passing quickly while she waits for a good time to start. Once a decent enough number of people are present and tucking into their meals, Azura strikes.

She hadn’t been sure what song to sing, but winds up reciting a hoshidan song she’d heard from Mikoto a long time ago: she hopes it isn’t only a simple lullaby, but regardless of any associations it might have, it seems popular enough.

Azura sways where needed, and though her voice is clear her mind is muddied with thought.

It’s been a while since she sang like this, really sang, and not just her song to go to Valla or calm the occasional forest creature into letting her step nearer – and absentmindedly she moves her arms as though to direct the water she has not summoned and her pendant lies still against her chest.

Somehow it’s a comfort, this normal performance. Azura smiles and finishes the second chorus, wandering the allotted space and taking measured steps, trying to catch everyone’s eyes with her own at least once.

The song dies out and she takes a bow. A few people clap and there’s some casual discussion while she heads back to the corner with the person assigned to the instrument – a large string instrument of some kind, Azura thinks it is called a koto? – and asks what song to do next, what they know between the two of them.

Azura makes her way through perhaps three or more songs until she has run out of good hoshidan ones that she knows the lyrics to and the girl knows the instruments to, so the two of them bid a goodnight to the people eating and head back to the counter where the owner is refilling a glass.

When he’s done, he turns to Azura with a smile. “That was excellent! Please, you have earned this.”

“Thank you. If I’m in need of work again, I would love to come back some night and sing again.” Azura isn’t really playing it up, this time. Her smile is sincere: she had a good time performing tonight, but it is time to take her earnings and return to Corrin, so she takes the proffered pouch – he must have noticed her coinpurse was missing, since she did tell him she had been robbed – and notices with no small level of amusement that he also set out a honey roll for her. She takes it, and waves goodbye at his friendly insistence that she come by to perform again some time.

She leaves the building in good spirits, ignorant to the person that gets up and exits after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kept trying to change the word i was using for the bar/tavern/inn place because i know there IS a word i just don't know what it is specifically, if that makes sense? But if it helps any of u all out, literally my exact mental image for this place is like one of those inns in skyrim except the fire pit maybe isnt like, right in the middle of the god damn room, thanks, hoshidans practice fire safety in this AU. Describing a person singing is awkward so i made that segment more about what she distracted herself with while she was doing it??? anyways next time on I Can't Believe It's Not Canon: we get our very first minor perspective switch and Mikoto makes her first non-flashback appearance! whoo! 
> 
> thank you so much for reading and again, it means a hell of a lot to me if you can take the time to yell at me about anything at all you liked/didn't like! See you soon, hopefully!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! I haven't had a bunch of time the past few days so it took me a good minute to be able to sit down and do the last editing for this chapter, but it's here now! Also, i wasn't sure how to best respond to comments with questions/advice in them (for some reason i feel like replying makes me look needy?? is that weird?? should i just reply normally in the future?) and decided to do it up here because i usually talk at u here anyways, haha. 
> 
> Addressing Komaru, thank you and you're right ahah. it's been a bit since i played the game over and I've started a new playthrough in the interest of b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶g̶a̶y̶ getting a better handle on each character's 'voice'. I edited a few of Azura's lines this chapter keeping what you said in mind, and hopefully I will only get better. my other stories right now are all in a modern-ish setting so i think sometimes i'll write something for her and go "wait, that's awkward" without realizing that's how royalty talks....... oops
> 
> Addressing Anonan: the long and short of it is that that story already exists. Him making that decision is kind of the diverging point of this au: he tried to kill her, so she ran away, and became a super rad mountain dragon, and when hoshido learned their princess was no longer captive (assumed dead) they had no use for Azura and people started pushing to kick her out of the Hoshidan palace because she wasn't "useful" anymore. Logistically sure he would have tried it, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s darker out now than it was before. Hoshido is a place of perpetual brightness, though, and string lanterns around the food district do a good enough job of keeping the alleys lit. Lights of purple and red glow against the cobbled walls and Azura, despite knowing how dry it will make her throat, takes a bite of the honey roll. What can she say? Corrin was right: mountain food was not fun.

It seemed no sooner that she had taken her first few steps, though, that she is stopped by a hand on her shoulder, fingers curled around with an unfriendly firmness.

She turns around, jerking away from the touch so that she stands adjacent to the man, stiff. “May I help you?” Azura asks. There’s an edge in her voice. Polite as it was phrased, it was really a “what-do-you-want-with-me”.

The man is somewhat older than her, and a bit taller. He’s lean and runs a gloved hand through coarse hair that Azura can’t quite make out the color of in the semidarkness. He stares at her, _eye_ narrowed and critical. “What is your business in Hoshido, Azura? You were expelled from this country.”

“Come again?” She wants to act surprised, or offended, but his comment cut her to the quick, and she is shaken. She’d assumed this was far enough from the capital that nobody would recognize her, and this is even worse than being recognized alone – he knows she isn’t allowed back in.

“State your business.” He says, unamused with her act. “I’m already taking you back to the capital for judgement, you may as well be sincere about your ill intentions here.”

At risk of making things worse, Azura takes in a deep breath and meets him head on. “It’s true that I have been expelled from Hoshido, but circumstance has forced me to return. My intentions are not of any harm or consequence to the country or royal family. I am not an enemy of the crown.”

“The crown says otherwise.” He growls, and Azura knows the conversation is over, and shoves away from him, heart leaping from her chest as she turns and runs as fast as she can, pivoting on her bare heel in the alley so she might save the time of turning around any other way.

Of course, a trained ninja with a height, weight, and muscle advantage over her is not stunned for terribly long. Azura can feel him tailing her more than see it, exactly, because he does not make a sound or alert her to her presence other than the vacuum of wind left in his wake.

It’s a bit of a futile cause, running from someone so obviously faster than her, but Azura is weaponless and Corrin is not far, so if he sees she has an ally it’s possible he may decide to run and give them time to escape –

Metal scrapes against the wall to her left and Azura stumbles away from that wall because she is running too fast to dodge nimbly, and she hears the telltale ‘clink’ of a small weapon against the stone path. Her feet feel blistered, but Azura encourages herself to pick up the pace lest she become a pincushion.

Her body does not fulfil the tasks set out by her mind, though. Before Azura can reach the edge of the city, she’s scrambled too far right and wound up on the wrong side – Corrin would be waiting on the edge nearly the other way around.

Turning back isn’t an option. The momentary indecision is enough time for another shuriken to be thrown, and Azura cries out when it scrapes against her arm, leaving a gash on her bicep. The next, if he thinks he has not subdued her, will hurt more, and be centered around the torso.

Azura crumbles, mentally damning her cowardice while she holds her arm and prays he won’t see fit to throw a second. “I submit,” She breathes. Her eyes are shut tightly, and she keeps her right hand pressed hard against the wound on her arm to try and keep the bleeding minimal.

It’s a stupid thing to think about in a time like this, but Azura is pretty sure she dropped her food. What a pity.

“Good,” The ninja says, and she cracks an eye open to see him standing at rest, putting another shuriken back into his pouch. Azura is, for the umpteenth time, glad she is in Hoshido and not Nohr. A guard there would certainly have continued their assault, or else, have killed her outright. “I expect you to cooperate fully. I will not hesitate to incapacitate you if you do not.” He sounds so stoic and toneless, like a stone guard.

She nods and blinks away tears. Don’t look weak, at any cost. “I understand…..”

Azura begins to stand up, shuffling forward a bit on the ground so that she might do it without using her arm to prop herself up, when she sees that the alley behind them was not as empty as they’d have believed.

Cast in the red light of the city, Corrin emerges shapeless, appearing taller with each step. Azura watches her humanity slick off like something meant to be shed, a discarded outer layer, and when the ninja turns at the sound he is face to face with the dragon that Azura encountered not two days ago.

Corrin roars.

She rears up while she does, wings flared and strange limbs splayed into rakes of nails, hard-piercing things that are swung at the man quickly with intent to score and mar the skin.

Azura is nothing if not impressed by the speed at which the ninja responds to the situation – she’d have been floored by such a sudden attack, but he seems to react fast enough to reach up and block with his arms crossed in front of his face and vulnerable areas, and Corrin’s claws find purchase in the sheet metal of bracers just beneath his common clothing, which is torn in the attack.

He seems to vanish, then appears behind Corrin with two daggers and the intent to bring them down upon her ‘vulnerable’ wing, but even the thinnest of her scales proves too tough for the weapons and she makes a draconic shriek and slams him with her head and horns in retaliation, metallic jaw loosening and tightening as she tries to snap at his arms, which he pulls out of the way reflexively just in time.

The ninja attempts to perform a roll to get around her and try again on the other side, but Corrin anticipates the direction and knocks him off course with a sweep of her tail, bladed scales near the tip dragging across his skin quickly and leaving a tear.

He gets up and jumps back again before she can follow up, though.

Corrin grinds her teeth in frustration, letting out a low, more muffled growl. He throws a shuriken. It bounces off her. She growls, louder.

Almost unconsciously, Azura backs off as well, sense of dread rising in her chest.

He throws another, finally piercing her wing at the top, leaving a ripped segment just above the joint, exposed red flesh under the grey scale, and Corrin _loses it_.

She leaps and seems to cover ground faster than he anticipated, pinning him beneath her and roaring loudly in his face. Her jaw clicks shut, then open, above his face. She flares her wings again, tail thrashing behind her.

Corrin is going to regret whatever she does next, and Azura knows it for certain.

She must do something.

Azura hurries to her feet, even taking her hand off her arm to help her ascent (and wincing at the still-open cut meeting the chilly outside air) and runs towards her. “Corrin! Don’t!”

The dragon jerks away from the ninja, still tensed. Corrin raises her wings and lowers them a few times, slowly. She’s warning her off, less than directly threatening her. It feels morbidly like the way foxes or wolves might warn scavengers away from their kills.

Except, Corrin is also human, and will regret this later. Azura grimaces and backs off for then, aware of Corrin’s sharp attention (though she doubts she can actually see her through that plate) on her.

There has to be _something_. Some way to calm her down.

Her song, Azura thinks, quickly. If she could compare Corrin to a wild animal in this time, then reason would – actually, damn reason, there is not time to speculate and make connections. Azura clears her throat once, then twice, and begins with the first verse.

“ _You are the ocean’s grey waves….._ ” The effect is immediate; seized up, Corrin turns away yet again from the wounded ninja and follows Azura’s movements with her head, an accurate, trancelike tracking.

Of course, nothing could work that effectively on just the first bar, and after a weighty pause Corrin seems to shake it and become angry again, batting at the air with her wings and stomping at the ground, raking the earth with claws.

She tilts her head at some insane angle and Azura thinks she might be preparing to breathe fire at her, which is very bad and very much _not_ something she can keep her composure through.

“ _Destined to seek_ ,” She starts, eyes roaming the area for anything she can use to her advantage or hide behind. The trees are sparse here though, and she won’t make it to cover before she is blasted, pinned, or worse, both. “ _Life beyond, the shore….”_

Her honey roll, with a bite taken out of it, is on the ground.

It’s as good a shot as any. If she cannot appease the mind, she might as well try the stomach, she thinks lamely.

Azura drops to the floor, grabs it, and throws it directly at Corrin, who sees it fly past her and follows the thing with her head and a curious flick of the tail.

She can’t believe it actually worked.

Corrin turns around, interested in the food, and her tail flicks from one side to the other, tip swaying in the opposite direction. She noses the pastry, as if to smell it, and then does something that stuns her into a complete standstill for a moment.

She opens her mouth –

It’s just not the part that Azura thought her mouth was.

Azura watches in full on, eyebrow-raising surprise as the space where the blue faceplate ends and meets more silvery scales opens up a fraction and a blue tongue slips out. “Gods,” She mumbles. “The metal part isn’t…?”

Corrin snaps up the entire piece of bread at once, flashing razorlike teeth in the instant her true mouth is open long enough for her to see, and it is gone and eaten before Azura can breathe another confused word of it. Corrin lets loose a happy warble and settles into a coiled position on the grounds, laying her head on the floor. Somehow, Azura can feel the “So, what?” look on her, despite the pressing lack of any actual visual sight Corrin might have on her.

After one more moment of befuddlement, the ninja stirs and Azura remembers he’s still with them, so she walks up to him and examines the wounds on his chest – he’ll heal. Luckily, Corrin’s tail spines are not sharp enough for a fatal blow.

“Know when you are beaten,” She says, scoffing internally at the confidence she says it with. She knows that she had absolutely nothing to do with this victory, but if he believes she has even a modicum of control over Corrin, who very much did win the confrontation, then he will take her words seriously. “I do not intend to harm anyone in Hoshido, and return only to help my friend. Once I have done so, I will disappear forever – just as ordered. Please, leave us. If only for now.”

He grunts and gives her a bit of a nasty look, but knows better than to pick another fight and dashes off, probably to immediately report the both of them.

Great.

Azura lets out a long, long sigh and sits down again, next to a seemingly sated Corrin, who’d taken to preening and licking the gash on her wing. Frankly, Azura is still reeling from the revelation that she had _two mouths_. What the hell?

She guesses it explains how Corrin can eat in this form without a throat connected to the false jaw, but still…she’d really thought that the metallic looking one was all she had……Hesitantly, Azura reaches up, and puts a delicate hand on the smooth, steel-like fixture.

Corrin goes very still, but slowly turns her head to Azura. She can see those red glow spots again, and drags her hand across the false jaw in a stroke, then runs it along her underthroat. Corrin makes a trill-like noise and settles her head in Azura’s lap.

Some things really are similar, then. Azura smiles and rubs her down gently, feeling Corrin’s whole being begin to coil just a little to encompass her better, humming with a nonthreatening rumble. Azura sighs, a bit more softly, and lays her head in the space between Corrin’s antler-horns.

“Oh, Corrin….” She mumbles. “What are we going to do in the city…?”

As if in response to the question, she stands up abruptly, and shakes herself off like a wet dog; a bright light comes off her and Corrin shrinks back into a more manageable shape. At first glance, she appears mostly human, but Azura’s gaze drops to Corrin’s usually bare feet and sees that they have failed to morph back, and her tail twists into view like it’d been hiding.

Corrin is flustered. “I did it again, huh…..are you hurt?”

“Not by your hand.” Azura replies, thinking of the wound on her arm. It still bleeds, a little, but she knows it isn’t fatal. It only hurts. She should be able to manage it with a cloth or something. Perhaps just tear a strip off of one of the cloaks, when she is able to get her hands on one.

“Is that guy gone?” She asks, double checking, and Azura nods. Corrin sits down next to her again, sheepishly. “I heard you talking, when you’d come out of the building….I was waiting not too far because I was getting impatient. Nobody saw me though! Except that guy.”

Azura shakes her head. “It’s no matter…I’ve already ruined our cover. I should be able to buy two cloaks soon, though. I propose we wait a day or two, and I will come down and retrieve them for us two nights from now. We can make for the capital that day if you can keep yourself contained enough – you could probably pass through a city the way you are now, if we wrapped your feet.”

Corrin nods slowly. “If it’s different on the day we leave, I can just keep trying.” She shuffles a little in the dirt, and shoots Azura an anxious smile. “It’s exciting, though, isn’t it? Like we’re sneaking out, almost. Only we’re going _inside_ the fortress.”

“Well said.” Azura replies, with a soft laugh.

* * *

As planned, Azura manages to get a hold of enough gold to buy two cloaks in two more days’ time (and another honey roll, to be shared with Corrin, who has developed, unsurprisingly, a taste for the sweet things) and they begin their travel at night, moving from the city on the outskirt they had been visiting to one a little closer. This was a city by a stream, and still a day or two’s travel from the capital without horses.

There’s a lot to be said for travel on foot, though, the first of which is that the citizens are unbearably nosy. Azura tied her hair up as best she could but at many points her hood has been questioned by passerby – which is reasonable, because even Azura can admit she and Corrin look suspicious.

It’s a day as clear as a bell and, really, even the shadiest of people might take their hood off to enjoy the sun.

But they can’t, Azura thinks lamely. Corrin might’ve been able to, if her latest bungle in her disguise hadn’t been a batch of scales covering her like freckles. Her back and neck were also supported by the same puzzle piece like spine present in her dragon form. And Azura, likewise, is too recognizable.

It makes getting directions somewhat awkward.

The travel isn’t all bad though – whenever they can, the two of them take a brief break and head for any of the more wooded areas they can find, and Corrin bounces about the less familiar wildlife, pointing out every different bug, mammal, or bird she can get a visual on. Some creatures also appeared on the mountain, but Corrin insists the species here are different. Azura’s less certain. Do brown squirrels really differ that much from the grey ones?

Apparently so. Azura stifles a laugh while Corrin tries her best to catch a lizard to show her.

The breaks are more frequent than they really should be if they want to make haste, but Azura sometimes worries for Corrin. She knows how to behave in public, and she loves people….but somehow she gets the sense that even a small amount of stress might lead to a mistake and blow their cover.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust her. She’s just…worried, is all.

Leaning back against a tree while Corrin chases down small animals, Azura wonders how long it will take for that ninja to come with backup. Maybe they _should_ pick up the pace a little…

* * *

The sun shines in the parlor, rays stretching past the slatted wooden windows high in the ceiling as if desperate to reach the carpeted red floors below. The throne is very high on the room, marbled and golden and beautiful, but it hardly ever sees use. It’s more for decoration. Mikoto likes to hold her hearings outside by the fountain.

Sound travels a little too well in the room, and carries Orochi’s voice to Mikoto even while she’s still in the hallway. “Oh! Your Majesty, I had hoped to discuss this morning’s fortune with you…it’s very curious.”

“If that is the case, I’m interested as well.” Mikoto turns to face her retainer, with a relaxed, interested smile already in place, but the two are soon interrupted by Saizo’s entry from the other side of the throne room.

They turn to look at him and he bows, not really taking the time to exchange any other formalities before he begins what he has to say. His clothes seem roughed up – a surprise, since so little is able to hit him. Mikoto looks upon him with interest, and Orochi, with concern. “Your Majesty. I found princess Azura in Nomazu some nights ago, and have Kagero tailing her now.”

There’s a flash of guilt, there, as Mikoto closes her eyes and wonders how the girl is doing. She didn’t want to send her away. She still doesn’t. But with some of the public and even one of her children against the idea of keeping her, it was either reject her or risk an assassination. She’d hoped Nohr would be safe…………

But she knew in her heart it would never be, for Azura.

Mikoto tries her best to sound assured of herself, then, when she asks Saizo why he took so long to get back to her with this. “Nomazu is not so far from here that it would take more than a day or two of travel to go between the two. Is there a reason you delayed this?”

“Azura is traveling with a dragon too dangerous to lose track of. Kagero came to relieve me of my watch and I made for the palace immediately.” He says it with an impeccably straight face.

There’s a moment that everyone seems to have missed, and if Mikoto could have stepped outside of time in that moment she would’ve come back seamlessly. Saizo is serious. Orochi is shocked. Mikoto is _something_.

“You’re joking!” Orochi reacts finally, but everyone knows that’s more outrageous than a live dragon – Saizo especially, who fixes the diviner with an absolutely nasty glare.

Mikoto does not know how to react. She wants to cry. Maybe shout. At the very least, say something, _feel_ something. It’s been so long…….will she remember her? Will Mikoto?

It takes a few long moments for her to leave her thoughts, and she looks back up at Saizo with a fervent focus. “What can you tell me about this dragon?”

“It is much larger than a man, and I wasn’t able to pierce the scales with my shuriken except after many attempts. It has long horns and is more nimble than anticipated.” Saizo pulls one of his shuriken from his belt and turns it over to reveal a dent in one blade, likely from the scales he mentioned.

He looks back to Mikoto. “I observed from a great distance due to my wounds, but I believe Azura calmed it back into the shape of a girl.”

So it’s true.

She needs time to think – she needs time. That’s it. Consult Orochi, make some of her own divinations, maybe pray. She doesn’t know. Mikoto just knows she needs Time. To make up for it, if not get it back.

“Please, see if it is possible to bring the two of them to the palace.” Mikoto gets out, eyes closed, pushing back a sigh. “I do not wish to see bloodshed on either side if it may be avoided.”

“They seem to be heading for the city now,” Saizo says cautiously. “Do you really want to speed this up?”

Mikoto looks down at her hands. Folds them together a few times, fidgeting. “I do not think Azura would have been able to return from Nohr if she meant harm, and I must believe, if Azura has any sway over this dragon, she will not do us harm either…..” Orochi puts a hand on her arm, placatingly, and Saizo seems to grimace under his mask but nods.

“I am bound to your service….however suspect I may find your conclusions….” He bows again and makes to leave.

She laughs. “It is a good thing that you are suspicious enough for the both of us, then. Please give your report to Yukimura as well.”

Saizo vanishes and Mikoto finally releases her sigh, knowing Orochi won’t care to judge. “It’s strange, but I cannot come fully to terms with what I’ve heard. I feel elated…..and scared.”

“Stranger times than this are hard to come by.” Orochi agrees empathetically. “I wonder if this has anything to do with my fortune this morning?”

“Oh?” Mikoto hums her reply. “You never did tell me what you saw, Orochi.”

She responds with a perplexed hum of her own and presses her cards to her mouth. “Well…that’s the thing. My fortune was very conflicting. I think that the gist of it meant that some sort of vacancy of the heart would be addressed, but in opening the wound advice would be neglected. Even though the fortune would be good, and the two of pentacles suggested there is no true issue….strife is coming anyways.” Orochi huffs, as if exasperated with the future, and puts her hand down on her hip.

“It’s quite odd. I didn’t think anyone here was much inclined to begin dramatics without reason, but somehow I can see a dragon and an exile bringing trouble into our courts…” She trails off, and Mikoto can’t help but nod. Trouble, indeed….

“I’m sure you have told it to the best of your ability. If you would excuse me, I think I might check on Sakura’s training and rest in my chambers. I get the sense tomorrow will be a busy day, if our interlopers have much to do about it.”

Orochi nods. “Of course, miss Mikoto! Get some rest. And tell Lady Sakura I said hello!”

And just like that, she is alone.

Mikoto walks slowly through the halls, each step light despite her excitement. She feels like she could run a marathon. She feels like she could pass out.

“Oh, Corrin..” She sighs, to herself and to the open air of the courtyard. “I have so much to apologize for..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most OOC part of this chapter: Saizo speaking in more than 2 word sentences. I'm a bit out of verse with this guy, I almost wish i wrote Kaze in instead but i somehow get the feeling he wouldn't chase Azura as intently and or throw things and or get into a fight with Corrin so....i'll have to work on that. Anyways mikoto is here! she has tragically few lines and a brief time in canon so u know what im doing. this is My City Now, mikoto isn't dead so all aboard the family bonding hype train,,,,,,i'm saying this but writing her wasn't fun at the bottom of the chapter tbh. how do you react to finding out your lost child of like 10+ years is just, idk, coming back like on her own time. i'd be flippin the hell out. but she can't like, say "hey i know for sure that dragon is my daughter!!!" so shes gotta Wait and act surprised as if she didn't Damn Well Know She Banged A Dragon and had his kid
> 
> mikoto "im kind of into that" ....they dont have a last name ill have to make smth up
> 
> god i talk a lot!!! sorry!! thank you so much for reading and i hope this was worth the wait, please hit me up if you have any questions, comments, criticisms, etc etc. i read them all the time and i can't thank you enough for taking the time out to say something or even just drop a kudos. see you around!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look who's BACK,,,, i finally got out for break but i fear updates still might be more around the range of two weeks per chapter because even with all my extra free time, I kind of started a bunch more writing projects than i should have, haha. oops. i hope you enjoy this chapter though!! have some pleasant gays before a shitstorm

“It’s so lovely out here in the morning.” It’s a pleased mumble that wakes Azura up, and she sees that Corrin has left the thicket where they’d taken shelter the night prior to sit outside and bask in the morning sun a little. She doesn’t turn her head much when Azura stands, but there’s a slight inclination that lets her know she’s heard her.

Azura stretches her back out – gods but is she excited to see a bed again, when this is all over, assuming they can even pull it off – and goes to stand next to her, trying untangle her hair with a hand while she walks. “The sunrise is beautiful.” She agrees.

Corrin leans back and looks up, giving Azura a goofy-looking grin. “I wonder if the sun in other places gets jealous,” She says idly, mischievously. “Because I just can’t seem to look at it here without complimenting it; and I went a whole life before this without saying a word about it.”

“It’s the same _sun_ ,” Azura points out, even though she thinks Corrin is aware of that much. “And I have difficulty believing celestial bodies take terrible offense to not being complimented.”

“I’m going to tell the sun it’s beautiful every day.” Corrin decides, clearly ignoring Azura’s interruption. “It’ll also remind me to compliment other beautiful things.”

“Do you have some sort of secret plan to serenade the whole of the continent that I’m not aware of?” Azura asks with a laugh, kneeling to sit beside Corrin.

Corrin flashes another grin; she’s feeling cheeky today, isn’t she? It must be because Azura remarked on how close they were getting last night. “I was thinking I’d start more locally.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Can’t tell you. It’s a code.” With this Corrin stands up and shakes herself off, like she’d been sitting too long and had pins and needles in her whole body and not just whichever leg she’d sat on. She looks curiously down at Azura, who’s still trying to do battle with her bedhead. “Do you need help with that?”

Azura shakes her head. “I will manage. It was relatively good this morning, actually.”

“Alright.” She might be imagining it, but Corrin almost seems a little put out. Whatever it is Corrin feels, it’s brief before it is once again eclipsed by straightforward happiness – Corrin looks over to the nearest town and fixes up her cloak so that it’s even on her shoulders, runs her hands through her own hair a few times, and so on.

When she’s done preening, she turns around to look at Azura proudly. “Notice anything special today?”

She squints, then comes to the conclusion that, no, she does not. Which is special in and of itself. She raises her eyebrows. “I see you used the foot wraps.”

Corrin lets out a short, sheepish laugh. “Yeah, I guess you caught that one. But I did really well this time! I figured out that if I bring in my wings realllly tightly, you can’t really tell they’re there with the hood down, because it’s all baggy and stuff.”

“Try not to strain yourself too much.” Azura reminds gently, and feels the last big knot come out between her fingers. She smiles and stands up herself. “We’re very close now. The back of the palace is too well guarded; the best way to get in will be to wait in the courtyard as if we are trying to get an audience with the queen and then to sneak through the garden where the guards are thinnest.”

Corrin hums. “You sure know a lot about the palace here. When did you have time to learn the guard shift?”

There’s a pang of guilt, there, because Azura realizes with suddenness that she has offered very little of herself when Corrin has given her everything: her past, her trust, her smiles. All Azura will tell her is that she was not popular with the Hoshidan government, and that the family she lived with made her leave.

She sighs. “I was held here as a prisoner before. Not unwillingly, but willing does not mean trusted. I lived in the palace, but I had shifts assigned to my door, too.”

“I’m sorry.” Corrin says sincerely, and Azura knows it is sincere from the way her eyebrows furrow in that particular, sympathetic way. “I didn’t know we were going back to a place you’d run away from.”

She shakes her head. “I was asked to leave.” Azura shuffles in place, rolling a stone over beneath her foot. “I liked it here. I think you would have, too.”

Much to Azura’s surprise, Corrin shakes her head quickly. “I wouldn’t like to stay in any place that didn’t want to keep you around!” She says with conviction, and it sounds almost mature, until she follows it up with, “So they can suck it!” and blows a raspberry on the palm of her hand.

It’s too much: Azura can’t help but laugh at her. Corrin seems at least a little embarrassed, but it doesn’t stop her from sticking to what she said. “We’re cooler, anyways.” She says defensively.

“I think you’re right.” She concedes. “Do you want to get moving? If we keep a good pace we should be in the garden by sundown.”

Corrin nods, and the two of them leave together, Azura pulling up the hood of her cloak while Corrin moves to do the same, but then thinks twice: Azura gives her permission to leave it down because there isn’t anything too visibly off about here aside from slightly pointed ears, which she doubts anyone will think too thoroughly on. 

She lets Corrin lead the way, even though she’s not the one in familiar territory.

* * *

They’re breathtakingly close to the palace before incident finally strikes. Azura can see the high, marble-like walls of fort Jinya not far from where they’re standing. Corrin walks without hesitation down the street, but Azura knows from the occasional tightness around her hand that crowds do not come without nervousness.

There’s a line of merchant booths, and it’s more simple to walk through there than to sneak around and risk running into people prepared to stop them. The best disguise is a crowd, and they use it to their advantage.

Corrin stares at any booth selling things she is unfamiliar with (with a particular interest in any booth that smells like food) and often turns to Azura with a question prepared, hoping to understand the wares better. They’re walking past a stand selling bean paste dumplings that Corrin has no shortage of interest in, fixated so thoroughly Azura wants to lean over and remind her not to drool, when someone screams, and Corrin is immediately back at Azura’s side, two hands on her arm tightly. “What’s going on?”

Azura looks around and sees someone making haste away from a booth that had been selling bracelets and other trinkets and sighs, putting a placating hand on Corrin’s shoulder. “It appears someone stole from that woman.”

“That’s horrible!” She sees the gears turning in Corrin’s head and bites her lip. “Do you think….”

“I wouldn’t advise running after him.” Azura says firmly.

Normally that would have been the end of it, but when confused witnesses start to look for the culprit, another unfortunate truth is revealed: wandering around in big cloaks is suspicious. Someone sends a soldier their direction, and Azura feels stuck. If she runs they will all come after them, but on the other hand, they are sure to be recognized this close to the castle….. She makes sure Corrin is looking her way, and whispers, “I don’t think it’s wise to stay together now. Shall I talk to the guard while you go around the stalls to the garden?”

Corrin shoots her a pleading look. “I want to stay together though..! I don’t know how to get around the garden!”

“Nobody knows you. You won’t get caught if you split off from me.” Azura reasons. “If I get caught here, the soldier will likely only take me into the palace prisons, and you’re going into the building anyway……this seems to be our best chance.”

“But I don’t want to split up!” She insists again, voice high and eyes shining. It occurs belatedly to Azura that she’s definitely scared, and by ‘belatedly’, she means to say that they are already being approached.

Azura takes a deep breath and inches just so slightly in front of Corrin. “Do you need something?” She asks, and hopes her voice is not betraying her too quickly.

“What are you two doing skulking around here?” He asks bluntly, so Azura supposes they at least won’t have to beat around the bush for too long.

“We were hoping to have audience with a judge not far from here.” Azura lies smoothly. “We came all the way from Nomazu.”

Regrettably it seems the soldier wants a little more than that. Azura sighs and removes her hood, seeing as there’s little hope of another outcome. His eyes widen and he scrambles to draw his katana – he is commanding her to follow before she gets an opportunity to speak again. “We will come peacefully.” She says. There’s a sinking feeling in her chest, that she’s failing Corrin, that she won’t get off as easy as she hopes and she could spend the rest of her life in significantly worse captivity.

(Un)Fortunately for her, Azura doesn’t have the time to stew on those feelings very long.

The sword seems to have…upset, Corrin, for lack of a more accurate term. She bristles and holds fast to Azura’s arm, and the closer the soldier approaches the harder she grasps. The thought is disorganized and uncomfortable, but Azura starts to worry what could happen in the rapidly approaching reality that Corrin is terrible under stress.

“I said we will come peacefully,” Azura says, perhaps a bit forcefully. “You are making my friend anxious. Please.”

“If I’m making her nervous, I’m doing my job.” He says gruffly, and reaches to put a hand on Azura’s shoulder. She stiffens at the same time Corrin makes a terrible noise; a harsh growl from the very back of her throat that lowers in pitch until it is well outside the bounds of human vocal folds.

The guard withdraws his hand as if he’d been bitten and brings it to his weapon, now drawn. Corrin hunches a bit. Azura looks between the two anxiously and makes a snap decision. “Corrin.” She says firmly. “Peacefully. We aren’t fighting.”

Corrin looks to her with wide, dilated eyes but then appears to shake it off, blinking until she seemed aware of herself again. “R-right…Peacefully. We’re going peacefully.”

“You some kinda beastblood or something?”

Before Corrin has the chance to ask what he means, Azura nods quickly. “Half werewolf; I took her to the capital to find a beastrune she could use, since I knew the kitsune to do business here. She had no idea I was forbidden from this country.”

He seems skeptical but turns to Corrin. “Is this true?” Azura pleads with her eyes for Corrin to lie along with her, to just tell him that it was a misunderstanding and that what Azura says is true. And, after a moment’s hesitation, it’s what she does.

Corrin nods, very slowly. “I didn’t know Azura was in trouble here. All she told me was that this is the place to go if I want to find a beastrune, because there might be kitsune around to point me in the right direction.”

The soldier seems to nod to himself, then looks back up at Corrin, who seems very much the kicked puppy. “Come with us and you will be situated in court later.” He puts the sword at his hip but doesn’t sheathe it.

Azura finally relaxes, shoulders slumped as the worst of the mounting tension seems to have abated, and miraculously, they failed to set a raging dragon loose in the middle of the town. But only barely. The soldier has situated himself between them, so that Corrin is in the front and Azura is following behind as promised, until he whistles over a reinforcement and she has a lancer behind her.

If she could, she would like to reach out to Corrin and reassure her – but she knows that can’t happen in their current position. There seems to be a bit of a crowd. People see Azura returning, and a stranger regarding the town warily being dragged along with her. The town seems to look back at her, and Azura sees Corrin shift anxiously from one foot to the other. The wraps are tight.

Everything after these observations seems to happen in a series of instants, like frames of oil paintings. Corrin stops and seems to look around for something, Azura isn’t sure what – they’re still a small ways off from the real center of town but they’re coming up to the statue that lies in the center, the one with the sword stuck in it.

After Corrin’s abrupt halt, the guard behind her prods her with his sword, a warning, and Corrin whips around in fright, nearly jumping at the rough contact and more importantly, fanning her wings out from beneath the cloak, mottled grey-brown fabric that would have slipped from her shoulders with the motion had it not been clasped loosely around her neck at the front.

The first soldier takes a step back; then he asks, angrily, why she said she was a wolfskin when she obviously wasn’t. She turns away, frightened, but the soldier staying with Azura raises his lance in a clear effort to side with his comrade, and Corrin turns away from him, too, until she sees the mounting crowd beginning to look their way, muttering, mumbling. Someone raises a hand.

Corrin is too skittish: it’s the last straw. A bundle of live nerves, she drops to the ground and finishes her transformation on the spot.

The dragon rears up and Azura thinks, _‘This is it, this is where I have no way to intervene, and the blood on her hands will be on mine as well for this suggestion-‘_ before the most curious turn of events comes to be: Corrin runs away.

A dragon, more than well equipped to take on two soldiers with bronze weapons, roars once, meekly, compared to what Azura knows she is capable of producing, and closes her steel trap jaw around the fabric of Azura’s dress quickly, pulling her off the ground. For a terrifying second she’s worried that her clothing will give out and leave her to be a very unflattering mess in the court center, but thankfully it’s not so bad and Azura is instead abducted by a panicking dragon.

Priorities, right?

……….Azura screams and clings tightly to Corrin’s long neck while she sprints in any direction that is away from the officers, including and up to _straight into the castle garden_.

Oh, Corrin.

Corrin, Corrin, Corrin.

They’re going to die.

Azura clings tighter to Corrin, at some point being tossed so that she’s more on her back, which is a small mercy. The way Corrin runs and her wings flare randomly beneath Azura, threatening to buck her off. The whole town seemed to be in an uproar now, but Corrin paid it no mind, charging blindly in whichever direction suited her whimsy and rearing around with a panicked squeal upon encountering any large crowd.

She charges headlong through a window, blinds and wooden bars no match for a six or seven foot dragon with sharp steel horns and Fear. Under Azura’s palms the scales of her throat shift while her head whips in every direction. “ _Corrin!”_ She screams, to minimal effect, and she sees a small herd of nobility in the palace gawking at them while Corrin lets out a sharp, high pitched rumble and her tail whips around to damage the already blown-to-hell window. Azura reaches up for the head and manages to take a hold of one horn before Corrin screams and charges off in that direction.

Oh, gods, what the hell is she doing? Piloting a dragon? But they are going the direction of Mikoto’s room, so maybe if Azura can just…..reach…she tries in vain to grab at Corrin’s other horn, barely holding on through the bumpy ride, and grimaces when they charge through another window.

Azura wistfully recalls an hour ago when things were going too well to be true and she actually thought there was even a shred of a chance they could sneak in and have one or two conflicts on the way out. Oh, poor, stupid, innocent past Azura. Clearly this is the only way conflict gets resolved anymore. Riding a dragon through the palace halls, screaming and causing what will probably amount to thousands of gold in property damages.

“Azura?!”

Ryoma is standing in the hallway with Rajinto drawn, electricity jumping off the weapon like a living creature of its own, sparks darting off the blade in arcs and fizzling out against the tiled floor. He holds it in a defensive position, so that the dull end faces him while he holds it out above his head.

Corrin tosses and tosses and jumps until Azura’s sweaty hands can no longer keep her mounted and she tumbles off to the floor below with a loud thump, and Ryoma, reservations cast aside, leaps at her with the legendary blade.

Kind of. Azura reaches to stop him, a pitiful attempt to grasp his leg, and ends up nearly tripping him instead. He manages to jump over her outstretched arm and give her a furious, if somewhat confused, look. Azura makes a passionate effort to explain her situation. “Don’t hurt her! She’s scared!”

“ _Scared_?!” Ryoma asks, rightfully incredulous. “It’s a dragon! I will defend my home and deal with you after, _traitor_.”

Well. She can’t say she didn’t try. Azura isn’t quite sure if it hurts more to know he once accepted her enough to feel betrayed by this outburst or if it hurts more to know how mistaken his anger is. She knows it hurts, though.

And he causes more physical ails with every moment: Ryoma struck at Corrin and his first blow is successful, superheated katana making a rift in her scales and likely causing a pain Corrin has never felt before: she roars in complete agony, sound so harsh it could rend metal in and of itself, and drags her claws along the floor while she flares her wings and snaps her jaw around the empty air where Ryoma had stood.

Azura stands weakly, not daring to throw herself into the fray. Both of them would surely cut her down, as things are. She must find another way. Some other way to intervene, that will get both to stop.

Down the hall, the door to Mikoto’s room creaks invitingly and Azura remembers the dragonstone, the item she risked it all for in the first place.

She just needs the dragonstone.

Arms and head aching, she stumbles down the hall while shouts and roars and the crackling of electricity, the screech of blade on metallic horn, ring out behind her. Get the dragonstone, she thinks numbly. If Corrin is beaten and Azura gets her the dragonstone, Ryoma may not kill her. It’s worth a shot.

The door is wooden and creaky with use; Azura shoves it open just far enough to slip in and sees the inviting blue glow of the magic stone, in the same place she remembered it being, and she reaches out to take it.

Secured, she turns, only to find Mikoto standing at the door, eyes wide. “Azura,” She says, and looks furitively down at the stone she holds.

She cuts her off. “Jail me for the rest of my life if you must, but allow me this one stone before my friend and your son kill each other.” She says, with uncommon conviction as she walks up to the Queen that had once so lovingly brushed her hair. Azura pleads with her, seeing the tears already springing to the older woman’s eyes. “Please,” she says. “Before they hurt each other more gravely.”

“We can stop them.” Mikoto says, and for probably the first time in Azura’s life, she looks less than mournful; the Queen is vibrant, and her still wet eyes are shining. “We must. I will call off Ryoma.”

“And I, Corrin.” Azura says conclusively. She looks down at the dragonstone, warm and glowing in her hands, and hopes to any gods that might still listen to her that this works.

The fight is raging in the hall, to the point that Azura grimaces at the idea of stepping back inside. But this was her idea, and she must see it through. She shudders and takes the step in time to watch Ryoma come crashing down the aisle when Corrin finally scores a hit. Her injuries have only increased.

“I’m going to calm her.” She says, reassuring herself more than telling Ryoma, who’d begun to pry himself off the ground. “Put the Rajinto away for now.”

“Do you expect me to-?!” Mikoto comes to help her son up, with a tender hand on his shoulders, though he stands so much taller than her when he has stood up all the way.

She holds his arm gently, an encouragement to listen to Azura. “I’m proud of you for protecting our home, but the dragon should subside soon. Please allow Azura to try.”

Ryoma seems reluctant, but bites back the rest of his sentence and puts Rajinto to rest at his hip. He doesn’t sheathe it, though.

Azura thinks that might be a good idea, as much as it hurts to air the thought. Corrin is bristling in the hallway, stomping her feet and making worse the trails of thick, congealed blood that run from her wounded arms and torso. There’s a tear in one of her wings. She looks furious, without eyes.

She walks up painfully slowly, raising her arms in what she hopes is a placating manner. “N-no need to be afraid…” She mutters, and knows how pathetic an attempt it is when Corrin shakes herself so hard her scales rattle and roars in Azura’s face.

Azura is obviously (quite reasonably) the more frightened person here.

Knowing she is face to face with metal death, she does an admirable job not flinching away as much as others may have. “I have no weapons.” She says, lifting her hands up, and she thinks the glow of the stone distracts Corrin for a split second, before her attention is re-fixed on Azura with intensity. Corrin lets a low growl loose.

She tries again to offer the dragonstone, but Corrin makes a hiss and swipes at her shoulder, reopening the wound from the shuriken and sending her to the ground with pain. Azura tries to press her hand to the places her shoulder is bleeding, but it’s too broad for her to cover and it stings too much.

Corrin is stiff and turns her head mechanically, creeping closer to Azura. Her tail flips one way and then the other, with force enough to leave scrapes on the hallway’s walls. She steps onto Azura, clawed hand kneading into both of her shoulders, and Azura cries out.

“ _Mother!_ ” Ryoma shouts, and Azura can hear him trying to wrest his arm from her. “I must-“ But Mikoto is insistent, and silences him. 

His voice gets Corrin’s attention and she shifts her weight a little, enough for Azura to hiss in pain while her claws move a fraction on her wounded shoulder. This is torture. The dragonstone, in her right hand, seems to glow a little brighter. “Corrin.” She says in a small voice. The dragon’s head snaps back to her.

“This isn't like you.”

Azura presses the dragonstone to the closest part of Corrin she can reach, her heaving chest, not far from the leg, and a bright light envelops her – Azura is momentarily blinded in the flash, but so close in proximity that she can see more clearly for once what happens, sees the scales and horns fading off of her as if they are disintegrating and her body returning seamlessly to a normal state, eyes burning with an energy Azura can’t hope to understand.

Corrin sinks to her knees, still clinging to Azura, but her hands are human and weak now – Azura feels the slight relief of not having them digging into her shoulder anymore before an exhausted shudder overtakes her.

“….Azura?” Corrin says, in a meek voice, pushing herself off her gently, so she might sit up without disturbing her further. Azura cracks an eye open and sees Corrin looking down at her tearfully. She sniffles. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t –“

“I know.” She replies, and has the presence of mind to spare a look towards Mikoto and Ryoma, who are still very much observing them. Azura looks back to Corrin. “It’s over now. And we can be sure you will not do this again.”

Corrin nods, her eyes still glassy, and shakes her head to rid herself of tears. “Okay.”

Azura presses the dragonstone into Corrin’s hand and tries to stand up – Corrin scrambles to get up before her, even though her injuries are clearly worse, and offers her a hand up. Azura takes it. “I believe we have some questions to answer first, though.” She says, without any real enthusiasm.

Corrin only then seems to notice there are others in the hall. “Oh.”

Mikoto has not taken her eyes off of Corrin since she returned to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something about this chapter's ending didn't stick right with me?? i feel like i could have done better, but i didn't want to postpone the update any further than the two weeks you've already waited, haha. I feel like the balance of dramatics was a little off, but that's probably because i've been writing more lighthearted modern day stories all week before this, lmao. 
> 
> as always thank you so much for reading and thank you so much for your kind and helpful comments!! please tell me if you think there's anything i can improve!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya! sorry to keep you waiting for so long, i was really busy f̶o̶o̶l̶i̶s̶h̶l̶y̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶c̶h̶a̶p̶t̶e̶r̶ with schoolwork and my other writing projects haha
> 
> I put off responding it but like also words literally cant even describe how blesst i am to have seen that pic of dragon corrin KeepItOnMe mentioned,,,,,,,,, i am so glad that you, too, appreciate the finer points of dragons and their cool design capabilities.....and corrin's cute ass horns
> 
> anyways! i've embarrassed myself enough, here's the chapter. Hopefully the next one will take less than three/four weeks! and keep an eye out for possibly...more AU azurrin (wink wink).

It’s almost surreal, the way Azura’s heartbeat seems to steady so quickly. The silence is near-oppressive, they are surrounded by weapons, the Queen herself and the crown prince are staring them down – and yet, Azura feels her pulse steady, and her gaze remains level. Corrin’s hand, in her own, tightens once, then slackens.

They go together, wherever the destination is.

Mikoto takes a halting step forward, and Azura gets the distinct impression that somehow she is afraid. Ryoma stands behind her, skeptical, stalwart, looking at Corrin with an intensity Azura isn’t sure she understands yet.

“I am _so_ sorry,” Corrin starts, taking a step to meet the queen on her way. While she does not let go of Azura’s hand, she reaches with an open palm to Mikoto with the other. “I know what I’ve done is inexcusable, but if you would give me a chance to make it right –“

In a decidedly un-Mikoto like fashion, the queen cuts Corrin off. “Corrin,” She says, and the word rushes out in one breath that seems to stretch on for a while despite the relative short length – Mikoto’s voice seems to break at the _i_ , and the next few steps are covered in a hurry, long skirt rustling against the ground because she does not seem to care enough to hike it up.

Corrin is still holding her hand, but, bewildered, she ends up comforting the queen with her other arm. Mikoto is trembling against her, and Azura gets the sense that she is intruding on an incredibly intimate moment.

She gives Corrin a single, tight squeeze, and releases her hand. Corrin looks to her, momentarily panicked, but Azura shakes her head.

The queen is no threat, even to Corrin, in this state, and Corrin is soon drawn back to the older woman, rubbing a gentle circle in her back. Mikoto cries. “It’s really you…!”

“I….I’m sorry?” Corrin says, still so, so clearly out of her element. She doesn’t pull away, necessarily, but the intonation does encourage Mikoto to stand up, and back off, just a bit.Her shoulders are shaking, and the usually dignified nobility has tears smeared across her face, and blood staining her white dress. She sniffles and shakes her head with a bittersweet smile.   
  
“No, _I_ am sorry. I really can’t expect you to remember me, after so many years……”

This draws Corrin’s attention quite readily. “We knew each other?” She asks, quickly. It can’t be easy to stand so alert with so many wounds, but she manages, somehow. Corrin has straightened out to her full height, impressive only in that she can muster posture that regal after taking such a beating. “Before Nohr?”

Another sad, sad smile. “I am your mother, Mikoto. All these years, I never knew if I would see you again….”

The other foot has finally dropped. Azura stands stock still. The princess, the one that had vanished so many years ago – the reason Azura was kidnapped, believed dead, the one who was supposed to be guarded in her stead, a dragon, her friend – this whole time, she’d known her?

Mikoto always seemed so mournful. Azura finally understood why. In the scarce moments before she stopped her, when Corrin had been losing the fight with Ryoma – she’d thought that they might lose each other.

It was the worst thought she’d had in her life, even if she couldn’t fully perceive why it made her feel so intensely.

Corrin reacts as well as anyone can really react to the knowledge that their long-lost mother was standing in front of them: confusion and doubt. “I….I don’t….” She actually takes a slight step back, flinching away from Mikoto. Azura hesitates and wonders if her presence would be appreciated, while Corrin’s grip on the dragonstone relaxes a little. “I don’t remember you,” She says at last, looking somewhat put out. “I’m sorry if this is cruel of me, but I have a hard time believing you.”

Somehow, Mikoto takes that, too, in stride, even though Azura can see a pained look on her face for a moment. “I understand that it may take time. I would not ask you to believe me with no reason.” She seems to think for a moment before she adjusts the long sleeves of her dress, somewhat anxiously. “But – please, stay here. For now, at least. Until you can be certain. Even if you don’t believe me, I……..”

Corrin lifts her chin, just a little, in a nod. “I owe everyone here too many apologies to take off without making up for it.” She says sheepishly, evidently looking at the damage to the walls. “If Azura and I are safe here, I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“Thank you. That’s – that’s good.” Mikoto seems to be talking to herself, and pulls gently at Ryoma’s arm, who has been standing with a constantly shifting expression while he watched the encounter. “Ryoma, would you please take Corrin and Azura to Sakura? I am going to go attempt to calm Yukimura and the others down and then go out to the square.”

Ryoma blinks. For his part, he’s also taking things in well enough. “Mother –“ He seems a bit halted. “You should probably change your dress. Corrin’s blood is….well.” He coughs. Corrin looks a bit embarrassed, which is almost hilarious considering she’s _bleeding_ , still.

Mikoto looks down. “…You’re right. I’ll do that, first.”

Azura feels like she’s watching a dream play out. Ryoma, standing meekly while Mikoto wanders around in a blood soaked white dress like she’s just woken up from a nap and isn’t entirely convinced she’s awake, Corrin, standing with a hand on her neck while her blood only just begins to clot around gigantic, bleeding scrapes, in the middle of a trashed hallway – hell, Azura has nearly forgotten about her own injury in all this mess. It only stings a little, anyways. She wonders if it’s numb from exposure or if just the sheer strangeness of her surroundings has made her forget it existed.

Whatever Azura was watching, it began to wind down. Mikoto hurries down the hall and looks back one last time to inform them they’d all be eating in the dining hall tonight to try and work things out.

Which leaves Ryoma, Corrin, and herself in the hallway standing around looking at each other like the first one to speak was going to summon some kind of curse by breaking the silence.

Corrin manages first. “Um, it’s Ryoma, right?” She reaches for Azura’s arm and seems to be trying her best to avoid eye contact while she speaks. “I’m sorry for tossing you around like I did. I wasn’t, um, myself.”

“My bruises are the least of our troubles,” He replies, slicking a hand over his hair. He looks guilty. “I’m ashamed to know I cut my own sister so many times.”

Corrin is reluctant. “Were you very old when your sister went missing? Do you really think I’m her?”

Ryoma pauses. “Do you mind if I look at you for a moment?” It’s now that Azura is reminded of just how considerate Ryoma– her brother, though only in upbringing – is. Though he’s much taller than the both of them, and is the only one armed, he seems to present himself as softly as possible. He’s hesitant, in the light of the non-shattered windows.  

“Go ahead.” She replies, and he stops walking down the hall for a bit so he can brush some hair out of her eyes. For a moment, it seems as if the world has forgotten to breathe. He reaches his conclusion quickly, and pulls away. There is a wave of something – she’ll call it almost-relief – from Corrin.

“If you aren’t the Corrin I knew – then you are most certainly identical. I think you are the sister I lost.” He says with certainty. “But it is not my place to ask you think the same. For now, please….follow me so Sakura may right these injuries.”

Corrin nods slowly. “Thank you. I….appreciate it.” The three of them fall silent for a while. For one dreadful moment, Azura thought Ryoma was about to initiate a conversation with her, but he seemed to think better of it. They reach Sakura in the back field in only a few minutes, and Hana and Subaki stand at attention when they notice Ryoma, though Azura thinks she sees one or both of them send her a questioning look. She’s unsure if it has to do with her presence in general or simply the bleeding gash.

Sakura is more surprised than skeptical. “Azura! You’re back!”  
  
Azura manages a tight smile. Sakura had been resistant to her departure - truthfully, they all had, even if Ryoma had tried to play tough. Sakura was the only one who cried, though, so Azura doesn’t know why she is so surprised when the younger girl is quick to run up to greet her. Azura resists the temptation to rest her arms on her little sister in a half-hug, as she’d done so many times before, and simply looks at her. Sakura returns her gaze with tears in her eyes - happy, initially.

The look on her face quickly gives way to fear, however, when she sees the state Azura is in. She pulls away and looks at her shoulder like she’s just seeing it for the first time. “You’re hurt,” She gasps, and then runs for her staff. “Don’t w-worry! I have my rod with me!”

“My condition is not the worst of the three of us,” Azura says eventually, because she can’t stand the thought of Corrin losing more blood while Azura soaks up yet more of the attention that was intended for her this whole time.

She is undeserving, Azura thinks with a grimace. Who was she to grow up surrounded by love meant for Corrin while Corrin lived alone in the mountains? She had to right this. Somehow. Some way. Starting with this.

Sakura stumbles and nearly drops her staff at the sight of Corrin. “A-are you....okay?” The last word is nearly a whimper, as Sakura has crept up to her and is looking intently at the wounds. “These are b-burned in....” A hesitant glance at Ryoma. He seems to have just gotten through dismissing Hana and Subaki - having said something quietly about a family matter.

He nods, once. “I’m afraid it was I who caused those wounds. For both our sakes, I am fortunate that I was not striking any normal flesh.”

The younger girl looks like she wants to ask, but stops herself, a rare look of determination crossing her face. “I sh-shouldn’t wait....any longer. Please stay still, m-miss.”

Corrin nods, seeming a bit perplexed about the rod - she probably doesn’t know why it has all the paper trailing off of it, bearing no memories of Hoshidan craftsmanship - but then before anything else can be said Sakura holds it out in front of her with a vice grip, knuckles white on the wooden shaft while she gathers concentration.

And then it all seems to flow out at once. Her form relaxes and Sakura makes one sweeping movement after another, until she has completed a full motion that Azura recognizes as a healing incantation. It’s hard not to smile, at least a little - she was the one that helped Sakura learn how to relax her form in that way. To think silly dancing lessons should find a practical application like this...

In any case, the rod and Sakura’s palms glow bright white once, then pulse twice and a green glow envelops Corrin’s wounds, which seal up and seem to melt off the skin. Were it not for a few shallow cuts left, and the tears in her clothing, it would almost be as if she was not injured at all.

Corrin shivers. “Gods, I....woah. That felt.....good. I could run a marathon now, and moments ago I could barely keep my head up...”

Sakura gives her a cautious nod, leaning on the rod while she regains her own energy. Healing sapped it from the best of them, at least for a little while. Azura assumes the magic needed to work a rod or stave was not unlike the exhaustion that set in after she used her song to compel someone to find strength - not the worst, but tiresome. “You should be b-better now....but try n-not to, um, stress your wounds. Please rest.”

She takes a deep breath and turns to Azura, with a bit more confidence. “Hold still...you won’t feel a thing after this, s-since your injuries aren’t as heavy as hers were.”

Azura nods and shuts her eyes, feeling the same pleasant rush - it’s kind of like the feeling she gets when she’s drifting in warm water. She could just float away....

Except, she’s on the ground in front of her confused estranged siblings. Back to earth, Azura rolls her now-fixed shoulder (which feels better than it has all this past week, ever since the shuriken incident) and looks to Ryoma. He will, she assumes, be directing them to some other place, now, even if Azura isn’t entirely sure on the specifics of it. Mikoto hadn’t really given him any instructions other than to find Sakura and treat their wounds, come to think of it...

Ryoma appears to be mulling over the same thing. “We should....” He starts, but then comes up empty. He puts one hand on his hip, and the other on his chin. “We should,” He says again, with a bit more weight behind it, which seems to do the trick for his brain because he straightens out his posture once more. “We should tell Hinoka what has happened.”

It seemed like a good call to her. She couldn’t count the number of times Hinoka had talked her ear off about Corrin, the mythic sister Azura was swapped out for - and she could also scarcely count the number of nights she’d stumbled across her, sprawled out in the training yard, sobbing into the burlap chest of a dummy over her.

If Corrin is back, Hinoka should have been the first to know.

The three of them seem ready to walk off, so Azura makes sure to turn around and offer Sakura a little wave in thanks. “I’ll try and talk to you more at dinner, okay?” She says, and assumes that this will be the end of it.

Sakura reaches out to stop her, hand on her wrist. “Wait! What are we t-telling Hinoka about?” She draws in closer still, now holding onto her upper arm. “Does it h-have to do with those loud noises?”

The three of them all wince in unison. Nobody had....actually explained the dragon thing to her, had they? Or....the long lost sister thing.....

.......oops.

“I’m afraid that was probably me.” Corrin volunteers, looking anywhere but Sakura’s eyes. Which is amusing, because Sakura is doing the same thing. They’re both just staring at the ground. “I was - well,” She seems to struggle for proper vocabulary. “I can turn into a dragon, so I maybe, sort of, did that.....and made a big mess in the front.....because I was startled.....” Her voice gets softer with every added sentence, and her face, a brighter red. She might as well have been admitting to bedwetting rather than, oh, say, _destroying the front room of a palace_. It’s hard not to feel bad for her though. Azura puts a hand on her shoulder.

“A d-dragon?” Sakura is disbelieving. Which is entirely fair because dragons aren’t supposed to exist anymore. When she looks to Ryoma for confirmation and he nods, she gets a look of concentration on her face and then actually manages to look Corrin in the eye for a second. Barely that, but it’s the thought that counts. “W-well...what startled you?”

“The swords.” Corrin answers honestly.

Sakura nods appreciatively. “That....makes sense.” She nods again, more to herself than any of them. “Well, um......I’m glad you’re f-feeling better.” She says, as if turning into a dragon was a mild cold symptom. Sakura shuffles her a feet a bit, clearly unsure where to take the conversation from there. 

“You have more to be glad for than that, sister.” Ryoma’s voice seems to come out of nowhere, at least to Azura, who was spending more time marveling at the fact that Sakura had managed to extend the conversation so long. Ryoma steps up and looks as if he would like to put his hand on Corrin’s shoulder as well, but withdraws it at the last moment, fingers curling back into his palm. “Mother believes that Corrin here is the same Corrin that was taken from us all those years ago.”

“Really?” She asks breathlessly. “You are?” She looks to Corrin eagerly.

Corrin looks away. “I don’t know. Everyone seems to think I am, but I just can’t remember.....for what it’s worth, I don’t want it to be a lie, either....”

Sakura takes a deep breath. “Then...I h-hope we can be sisters again, if you ever do remember.”

“Thank you. I hope the same thing.”

Ryoma fidgets in place, which Corrin and Azura both take as a cue of sorts. He is clearly reluctant to interrupt, but also to wait. “Hinoka is likely still out preparing to mobilize the pegasus knights. Mother said she was going to calm the people down, so she may well still be in the field keeping them ready. Would you like to go out to meet her, or have her come to us?”

“Considering what provoked Corrin in the first place, I don’t believe it wise to wander out into a field of soldiers,” Azura says at length, since Corrin seemed indecisive.

She laughs, a bit sheepishly. “Oh, wow, you, uh...have a point. Maybe I should take it easy for a while...”

Ryoma gives them a curt nod. “In that case....Azura and I will go meet Hinoka. Please wait here with Sakura, Corrin.”

Corrin seems surprised - Azura is too, though she stifles it rather quickly - but after a moment recovers. “Oh, o-of course.” She shoots Azura a quick grin. “She probably missed you too.”

It’s difficult to bite back her response to that, in part because Azura isn’t sure how she feels about it. The idea of Hinoka missing her makes her feel _some_ kind of way, but she isn’t sure if it’s good or not. Perhaps she could call it melancholy? As much as she’d thought of Hinoka as her own sister - as much as they had acted that way - she knows at the end of the day that she was a placeholder for Corrin. So if she greets Hinoka, and is met warmly, then she can’t tell....would that make it hurt more or less when Corrin takes back her place again?

So she just returns the smile. “We will be back quickly.”

And then Ryoma leads her out into the hall again, leaving the sisters behind in an only mostly-awkward silence, and they are alone. The silence between them seems to go on for ages, even while they’re walking and time is clearly passing normally. Eventually he stops her, just short of the end of the hall that will take them out into the fields.

“Azura, wait.” He says, and she stops and tries not to look worried, because she’s been dreading this conversation.

She wrings her hands instead. “Yes?”

Ryoma sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Inhales to say something, then cannot seem to say it and stops again. He makes a soft, frustrated sound and runs a hand through his hair. “I must confess, it is difficult to convey this hope properly: shame prevents me from speaking with my full vocabulary, it would seem.” He sighs again, but when he looks up he meets Azura’s eyes readily. Ryoma has a way of handling everything, even the most mundane of interactions, with a little too much intensity. Even if it is deserved in this situation, it would be a lie to say Azura didn’t falter a little at the sight. At least she could tell he was being honest.

“That’s alright.” Azura says quietly. “Please, tell me what it is you wish to say. I don’t want to keep Corrin and Sakura waiting any longer than they must.”

“I owe you first an apology, and after that, a debt. What my family has done cannot be forgiven, and what you have done for us can never be repaid.” He says, and takes another deep breath. “I should have fought harder to keep you with us. Should have convinced the court. It was callous of us to do what we did. I would not fault you if you never forgave my mother, nor myself. But please do not hold my actions against Sakura, Hinoka, or Takumi. None of them - not even Takumi - wished to see their sister leave. Nor did I.”

Azura looks to the floor, mostly because she’s worried that if Ryoma keeps staring at her with that earnest expression she might cry. “I understand why you did what you did. You couldn’t shelter me any longer, and Hoshidan nobility was already arranging to make attempts on my life. You thought I was safer in Nohr. I forgave you all the moment I was sent away. Truly.”

“Yes, but -!” Ryoma has leaned forward, but Azura cuts him off with a quick shake of her head.

“You don’t need to beg or grovel for my forgiveness. You already have it.” She says softly. “Just hearing that you all thought of me as family is more than enough to sway me.”

He is very reluctant to accept the answer, but Ryoma recognizes that there is no need to push it. He inhales one last time. “I owe you a great debt, and if you would have my apology then I will accept your judgement.” Ryoma stops for a moment and looks away, uncharacteristically bashful. “...Thank you, Azura. It goes without saying, but should I ever hear ill of your stay here again I will see personally that the source is removed from the council before they have the power to so much as budge Yukimura’s decisions.”

She nods and does her utmost to blink away tears, but somehow it doesn’t feel like she’s being weak. Ryoma holds the door open for her.

“We’d best round everyone up as soon as possible. I feel that we are going to have a rather...complicated dinner tonight,” He admits, but puts a firm hand on her shoulder as she steps past. “But I think things will only get better from here.”

“I hope you’re right, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endings are hard, guys. Why do they always feel so blunt? Gotta work on it. In other news, there's a loooooot of talking in this chapter. Get ready for a looooot of talking in next chapter, too. We're kind of at the speech heavy part of this story, ahah. I try to balance it out with introspection, etc. There will be more action, later, which is the most i can say without spoiling. I'll try and make sure it doesn't get too boring, okay?
> 
> On that note! Thank you for reading and i am eternally indebted to anyone who gives me feedback as usual!! Have a great day!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVED BITCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> hello! it's been over a year since i updated but not even death can kill me so I'm back!! I started replaying all three routes again (probably not wise to start them all at once but i'm sure you've gathered that my attention span is all over the place by now,) and despite initially feeling too much shame to come crawling back a year late I realized that if I enjoyed something that stopped updating I would be thrilled just to see it come back, not pissed it took so long LMFAO.... that said I am super super sorry that i rly took a whole ass year to come back... school and life got hectic and I kind of forgot I had to update, haha.... and then, y'know, forgot that I forgot to update...and so on. Vicious cycle! 
> 
> Uhh, now that that's mostly out of the way. A good half of this chapter has been written for a year or longer, and the second half was added more recently when determination lit a fire under my ass. I sincerely apologize if there's a jarring transition between tone in there that I didn't catch. I've edited the chapter to hell and I think it looks better than it did, but it could also be that i read my own writing too much and started to glaze over things, haha. 
> 
> TL;DR : if you're just stumbling into this fic now that it's come back, welcome! I assume you've binge read up to chapter 7 which means you like it (?) and fortunately did not have to wait a year for me to update! if you read this fic a year ago and are still in the fates fanbase AND still like the fic.... i owe u a blood debt. thank you. thank you for believing in me

Hinoka is still in the process of dismissing the Pegasus knights when Azura and Ryoma arrive. She brightens when she sees the two of them, and directs another important-looking woman to take over for her while she walks over, still holding the reins for her own pegasus, Tana. “Azura, I thought I’d never see you again!” Hinoka claps a hand onto her shoulder, clearly unbothered by her return. “I know this is probably going to make a real mess, but....I’m glad you’ve returned, being honest..”

That said, Hinoka turns to face Ryoma. “Now....do you have any idea what’s going on, brother? Why were we summoned only to be dismissed right away, and what those noises were -”

“Peace, Hinoka. A lot has happened in a short time. I’ll do my best to explain, but I can assure you that only good things will come of today’s events.”

“An assurance I’ll be happy to take you up on.” Hinoka smooths the fur over her pegasus’ face. “Do you think you two can fill me in on the way to the stable?”

“I can certainly try.” Ryoma replies. He follows, and it takes Azura a moment to quietly follow suit.

They seem glad, at least, and Hinoka pulls Azura up to the front so she’s walking alongside them instead of behind. “Let’s start with you, alright?” Hinoka says, gesturing to Azura. “What brought you back here?”

“….A friend of mine needed a guide.” Azura offers reluctantly. Should she be honest? She _did_ technically come here to steal. Maybe she’d better keep that particular secret to herself. The stone ended up being Corrin’s by right, anyway. Somehow. “I met her up in the mountains, and never told her I’d been sent away from here.”

This seems to pique Hinoka’s interest. She leans over, and even her Pegasus cranes its neck as if to look eagerly at Azura. “The mountains? I thought you went to Nohr….?” She seems to reach a conclusion and an expression of righteous indignation crosses her face. “Your caravan wasn’t jumped, was it? I’ll hunt any robber down myself if I have to -”

Shaking her head, Azura interrupts before Hinoka takes the idea to heart and goes off on a wild goose chase for bandits that aren’t real. “I was chased out. Nohr does not care for a reminder of their dead Queen. Nor do I care to be reminded how…unpopular my presence is. I did not waste much time parting from the country.”

“That’s terrible!” Hinoka exclaims. “They’d treat you like that after being gone so many years? You’re a crown princess!”

“I was treated that way before I was abducted, truthfully.” Azura turns her head. “It’s...not the point. I returned to the country with a friend and caused some trouble at the front gate by mistake. Ryoma intercepted us – he can explain from here.” It feels somehow out of place to be the one that tells Hinoka her long-lost sister is back, so Azura quickly passes that duty to Ryoma.  

They’ve reached the stable, but Hinoka is clearly waiting to hear what her brother has to say, even as Tana gets into the stall of her own accord and waits patiently for a reward.

Azura absentmindedly passes the mare sugarcubes while Ryoma finds his words. The pegasus is eager and gentle at her fingertips, the only being here unaffected by the strange atmosphere.  
  
Clearing his throat, the eldest child tries to broach the subject of Corrin.  “It may be hard to believe, but the friend Azura spoke of - she’s no random mountain dweller, certainly. She appears to be able to turn into a dragon – that was the noise from earlier. We were fighting. Things have calmed down considerably now, however.” Ryoma looks away again, clearly still puzzling over the best way to break the news. “And what’s more, Mother…she... she believes the girl is Corrin.”

Hinoka doesn’t say anything for a while. Azura is concerned enough to forget what she’s doing, only for Tana to mouth at her fingers again and snort. More sugarcubes. Azura grabs a few more from the pouch on the gate door and gives them over before finally turning to assess the situation.

The eldest princess of Hoshido is staring her brother down with grave intensity. “What do you think, brother?”

“After seeing her with my own eyes, there is no doubt in my heart. It’s Corrin.” He says firmly. “I only wish our reunion had been less stressful.”

“What are we waiting for?! Take me to her!” Hinoka seems ready to jump onto Ryoma, pulling at any loose fabric she can get, forcing his head down to her level. A grip like that could probably level a pegasus - maybe it has. “Which direction did you come from?”

Ryoma blinks. “She’s in the garden with Sakura. We were going to lead you back there –“ Hinoka is already running off. He sighs, shoulder slackening. “No patience, as always… Azura, did she remember to lock the gate?”

“No, but I took care of Tana for her. The stable hand should be able to give her a nice brushing, but for now I’ve taken her lead off.” Azura slides the latch into place and looks in the direction Hinoka went tearing off to. “We should probably go help with the scene she’s going to make in the garden….it might have been wise to tell her Corrin has lost her memories before she left.” She muses.

“Good idea. I wish I had been so thoughtful…” Ryoma runs a hand through his hair (reminding Azura of how fortunate she is that hers behaves itself. How on earth did his get so spiky?) and ultimately turns to face her. “Why don’t I get Takumi in the meantime? It’s nearing evening, and I haven’t forgotten Mother’s dinner plans.”

Azura nods. She’s certainly not going to complain about being spared the task of going to find Takumi – she’ll take sorting out Hinoka’s emotional reactions any day, since she’s at least predictable. “I’ll try to keep everyone in the garden. Good luck, Ryoma.”

“To you as well.” He leaves for town. Takumi must have been out of the palace doing something today - and he would surely have come back a while ago if he’d been close enough to hear the commotion Corrin made, so it must have been rather far.

Upon arriving at the garden, Corrin doesn’t waste much time on diverting the topic to her. “Oh, Azura! You’re back! Uhm, Hinoka is here now, and, she’s uh, very excited. Do you know her? You know everyone here, right?”

She stifles a laugh. “Yes, we’re familiar. I’m guessing you got a volley of questions the moment she arrived?”

Corrin responds with a panicked looking nod. Azura tries not to laugh again, and Hinoka hangs her head. “How could she have forgotten….?” She asks pitifully.

“Corrin was very young, Hinoka.” Azura says placatingly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Being kidnapped was probably traumatic.” She’s speaking from experience, after all. Echoes of the day her room was broken into come to mind - the wraps and bracers of Hoshidan ninjas obscuring her eyes, arms over her head, lifting her up without the slightest effort. Rough handling; a bumpy cart ride in total darkness.

Sometimes, she remembers it with gratitude. Azura still can’t decide if that’s a relief or a tragedy.

“You have to accept that she’s forgotten some things.” She says instead, quietly, as she tries to soothe Hinoka.

“Damn it!” Hinoka’s shout startles the other three, and Azura tenses. Her frustration doesn’t seem to be directed at any of them, in the very least. “Was it not enough for her to be stolen physically? Her memories are gone, too?!”

“Sister….” Sakura says quietly. “It’s not her fault…and Corrin is still really nice…We just need to make new memories.”

Corrin seems to perk up. “Yeah! Maybe if I make a bunch of new memories with everyone, the old ones will resurface. Cheer up!”

It takes a moment, but Hinoka collects herself and has the decency to look guilty about shouting. “..You’re both right. I had my hopes way too far up….but for now……” She edges closer to Corrin. “Is it alright if I hug you?”

“Uh…sure?” She seems reluctant, but Hinoka quickly latches on and gives her the bear hug of the century. Corrin sends Azura a painfully forced-looking smile and pats Hinoka on the back.

She’s pretty sure Hinoka is crying a little. Azura looks away and tries not to look terribly invested in what happens next, and Sakura, too, looks on with a mixture of awkward relief and worry.

...Once the length of time borders on the absurd, however, Corrin eventually squirms out of Hinoka’s hold, looking apologetic. “Umm......sorry....I’m still a little sore, and you were kind of squeezing me...”

Wiping her eyes, Hinoka nods. “It’s okay! It’s - it’s okay. I was being overbearing.” The red knight moves to be closer to Sakura. “We’re waiting for Ryoma and Takumi, right? Did they say where to wait?”

“Here in the garden is fine.” Azura replies.

More silence. A thoroughly uneasy Corrin fixes her hair up a little – well, as much as she can fix a tangled mess like that with her hand – and backs away, unsubtly making her way to Azura’s side.

Azura can’t blame her, really; all these new people in one day itching to get close with her is no doubt emotionally draining. Especially considering the number of people she’s used to interacting with in a day is…well, none. All the vigor and eagerness of this morning seems to have been rubbed away, and the Corrin that eagerly bounded up to stall-fronts to start conversations has been worn down to this one, who seems in dire need of a nap and some warm food.

‘ _Hang in there, Corrin.’_ Azura thinks.

They have a long dinner to get through, first.

* * *

The banquet hall isn’t often the first choice when the royal family is taking their meals together. Because it is so spacious, and their numbers so few, they often just took their meals in the cabinet room in the eastmost wing – the one with the fireplace. Tonight it seems that Mikoto has requested their meal to come later than that of the servants, so the seven of them will have the expanse of tables all to themselves.

Corrin seems less than at-ease in the gigantic hall, but after some reassurance from Azura takes her place at the table to Mikoto’s right. Azura sits beside her, and Sakura, beside her, and across the table, Ryoma, Hinoka, and Takumi sit arranged by age to Mikoto’s left.

It would seem Ryoma had a private talk with the younger prince, because despite a glare that could wilt plants, he says nothing to Azura, and hardly looks at Corrin. It’s strange, frankly – the curiosity must be eating at him, so she wonders what got into that head of his that would turn his ire upon his own sister…

Regardless, everyone waits for Mikoto to finish thinking whatever thoughts she must be thinking, and give them leave to begin eating. “Tonight, I would like to thank the gods for allowing us to eat as a family again.”

“ _Partially_ ,” Takumi grumbles under his breath, with a pointed look at the other end of the long table – where the deceased king would no doubt have sat. If Mikoto hears him, she doesn’t react.

Mikoto has them all fold their hands (Corrin tentatively mimics Azura, looking nervous) and after a pause says they may eat. Normally this is when everyone would begin talking, but….Azura glances over at Corrin, who is uneasily staring at her utensils, and realizes someone else is clearly going to have to start the conversation.

Oh, well. Azura begins to eat her food, unsubtly demonstrating the correct way to do so for Corrin. She’s hungry, and it’s not as if she’s ever been a sparkling conversationalist. Surely someone else in the room is capable enough.

Some time after the fifth or sixth time Corrin dropped her food, she shrugs helplessly and begins to use her hands.

“Um….” Sakura clears her throat. “Corrin…..you, um….you can have a fork, if you need it…” of all the people to break the silence, she hadn’t expected it to be Sakura.

“I can get it for you!” Hinoka volunteers, maybe a little too quickly. She stands up and dashes off, looking incredibly relieved.

Ryoma clears his throat. Like Azura, Mikoto is of no help in this situation – they’re both more interested in seeing how things play out and in eating first. “So….Corrin.” He starts carefully.

“Ahuh?” She asks, quickly swallowing what she had. “Wow, that’s pretty good…” She mutters, momentarily distracted, but she shakes her head. “Right. Yes?” This is addressed back at Ryoma, who relaxes a little when he sees he’s gotten her attention.

“Where did you and Azura find each other, Corrin?”

Corrin tilts her head with a thoughtful expression. “Azura was climbing up the mountain. I found her and, um, offered to house her for the night. All the nights. It’s…cold, there. And scary. And she was really nice to me, so….” She fidgets, then settles on kneading the tablecloth with her dirty hands, making a bit of the mess of the thing.

Sakura looks embarrassed on Corrin’s behalf; Takumi looks disgusted. Mikoto is still on cloud nine, so there’s no input from her on the ruined tablecloth. Hinoka hasn’t returned with the fork yet.

_Well, this is going swimmingly,_ Azura thinks, dryly.

Ryoma nods carefully, apparently electing to ignore the misstep as well. “You have a house? Do you live with anyone?”

Corrin stiffens. “Uhh……Yes,” She answers eventually. Considering Azura and Corrin are both well aware of what a house is, and that the cave is very much not one, it would seem she’s opted to lie about it.  “I have, a nice, um, mountain….home…I lived alone, though.”

“When did you come to this ‘mountain home’?” Surprising everyone, Takumi speaks up. He’s naturally suspicious, but not as outright hostile as Azura had expected.

Scratching at her cheek, Corrin mulls over how to answer. “Hmm.....it must have been....nine...ten years ago? I was run out of Nohr at a young age.”

Leaning back in his chair, Takumi grumpily crosses his arms. “I know Nohrians are stupid, but kidnapping royalty only to chase them out? Giving them a convenient _house_? What sort of fools do you take us for?”

“That’s -” Azura starts to interrupt on her friend’s behalf, but the younger boy snaps at her.

“Stay out of this! I’m asking _her_ , okay?”

Well, there goes that attempt.... Downcast, Azura returns to prodding at her food, but Corrin seems to have paused, her entire demeanor locking up. It’s not unlike the time....back in the forest....

She tries to calm her, carefully, to put a hand on her knee or provide some other show of support, but neither proves necessary - or rather, both prove too late.

“Don’t shout at her!” Corrin growls, suddenly closing her fists around the tablecloth, with the distinct sound of tearing. The whole table shakes as a result of her slamming her hands onto it. “You don’t have to like me or anything, but in case you haven’t noticed, I didn’t invite _myself_ to dinner!”

The room is particularly charged with negative energy, and even Hinoka, returning with the utensil she promised, takes note of it and sits in her seat with a subdued vigor. Corrin finally drops the glare and looks at the table in front of her with the dawning realization that things had gone wrong and it was, most likely, her fault.

She can see it - the way her breathing speeds up, the halting way she sinks back into her seat - Corrin looks almost the way she had this morning when there was a lance pointed at her neck. Is she truly so afraid?

Azura rubs gently at her knee, under the table. “It’s fine...It’s fine...” She mumbles. Corrin gives her a look as if to point out that it very much _isn’t_ fine, but doesn’t say anything else. She takes Azura’s hand in hers and tries to calm the tremors in her own.

“I’m sorry, Corrin. You must be very tired, and here I’ve been insisting we catch up all in one day...” Mikoto sighs, lapsing, for a moment, back into that melancholy state she’d drifted in and out of so often in the days Azura had lived here, before putting on a smile and facing her possible estranged daughter. “Why don’t we get you to your room and try this more slowly tomorrow? Would that be alright with you?”

“...I’d like that.” With a soft reply, Corrin waits for Mikoto to stand and gets up after her, taking her plate and sending Azura a hopeful look. She shakes her head and gestures to the four siblings. Corrin sighs and keeps moving.

Azura will have to join her later. As it stands....she picks a bit more at her food, but the mood has been brought pretty low. Sakura looks like she might burst into tears at any moment because of how tense it is.

What a sad state of affairs it must be. The family has never been talkative, but this is a bit ridiculous.

Hinoka clears her throat. “How about you, Azura? What has it been like since....” She trails off, seemingly trying to find a conversational way to bring up the fact that she was kicked out. At least she’s making an effort.

“I left Nohr not long after arrival because they had suspicions I’d been sent to spy. After a few days I made it up the mountain near the western border and ran into Corrin.” It’s brief, as to-the-point as she can make it. There’s no need to bother others with the gritty details, and no need to heighten their shame.

“Pah! The fools won’t even accept one of their own back into the fold.” Takumi’s still-sour mood hasn’t improved a bit since Corrin left the room, but he sounds somewhat desperate. Like he’s looking for an excuse to blame Nohr in its entirety, almost - like if he can find a reason to dislike them more, he’ll be justified in his rebuffing of Corrin. Surely even he knows he’s contradicting himself, now.

Still... has she really been gone so long he’d reject her too? It’s only been a few weeks, and while they’ve never been particularly close, they used to have a courteous relationship, at least. Azura sighs and has a bit more of her dinner.

“Takumi, you’re the one that just ran poor Corrin out of here doing the exact same thing!” Hinoka shoots her younger brother an accusatory glare, which is promptly returned twofold.

“How do we _know_ that’s the same one that left us?” He shoots back. “Nohrians are experts in _illusion_ magic! You’d know that if you didn’t fall asleep during all of your tactcial history exams!”

“I know my little sister when I see her!”

“Everyone _calm down!_ ” Ryoma roars, and the table goes quiet again. Sakura is trying her best not to cry, and the eldest sibling takes his headpiece off and gives them a weary look. “Both of you, that’s _enough_. Cease this bickering at once.”

It’s like the room itself has been sworn to silence. It’s so....stifling. They used to be like siblings. It hasn’t been that long, has it...?

Azura sets her utensils down and addresses them directly, taking care to make eye contact, particularly with the instigator of the group. Maybe Corrin didn’t want to share this information, but it’s better for everyone if she does. “Everyone....please do not repeat what I’m about to say, but Corrin lied about having a house earlier. If you’re truly suspicious of her for that reason, then believe me and let the matter rest. She wouldn’t want you fighting over it, nor do I.”

“Why would she lie to us?” Hinoka asks, folding her arms. “We’re family!”

“With respect, sister, Corrin has been here a day. It’s very possible she doesn’t see us that way yet.” Ryoma says with a sigh, closing his eyes. “Still, it’s troublesome that she’d lie about such a simple question. Why?” This is directed at Azura, who does her best to refrain from putting her head in her hands and developing a migraine on the spot.

Still, a question is a question, no matter how oblivious the asker is... “...She’s embarrassed about it. Look at yourselves - you’re all royalty. Her first impression of you is a giant castle and a dining table laid out for four times the number of inhabitants.” Azura crosses her arms. “Corrin hardly remembers how to use a fork. The last thing she wants is to admit she’s been living in the wilds for a decade.”

“But what about the Nohrians?” Takumi presses. “How can we be certain they didn’t intend to send her back here? How can we know she’s the same?”

With a last, frustrated sigh, Azura decides she may as well follow up on Corrin’s clear offer to head back to her room with her. She knows Takumi is a well-intentioned person most days, and probably means only to be a voice of caution for his family, but she doesn’t have the patience or the desire to recount Corrin’s entire tale to him now. “I do not know what to tell you, other than the fact that Corrin holds my trust. I believe what she told me. If you want to ask her what happened, then do so, but it isn’t my discussion to have.”

She stands to excuse herself, leaving the last of her meal behind on the table. “Good evening.”

The other siblings give Azura a cordial response, then lapse back into silence. Azura’s pretty sure she hears Hinoka chastise Takumi before she’s out of earshot, though.

Drifting through the hallway, it’s not hard to guess where Corrin will be housed, and sure enough, she sees Mikoto walking away from the room Azura had never been in: Corrin’s room, from childhood.

She gives the Queen a polite bow before stepping in herself, and Mikoto responds in turn with a grateful smile. “Good night, Azura. We’ve had your previous chambers prepared, but if you don’t see fit to use them....” She covers her mouth with hand. “Please just let me know...even though I _am_ an old gossip.”

Even aloof as she is, Azura isn’t immune to the implications, and she has to recompose herself a moment lest she become a flustered mess. “That....I...I will use them, Lady Mikoto. Please rest assured.”

Mikoto smiles and wanders back off into the dining hall. Logically she knows that Mikoto knows her intentions and is just having a bit of fun with her, but this _is_ newer behavior in the Queen. Corrin's return seems to have lifted her spirits greatly. Hopefully the mess waiting for her in the dining hall doesn’t soil that mood. Who would have thought there’d be this much argument over her return?

Speaking of which....Azura raps on the door a few times. “Corrin? It’s Azura. May I come in?”

There’s a pause, then some shuffling, and Corrin practically throws the door open. “Sure! Yes! Umm....if you want.”

She’s calmed down considerably, and for that Azura is grateful. Corrin ushers her in and shuts the door behind, all but leaning into it to keep it closed. “Phew. It’s been...busy today, huh? A lot of...stuff, and uh, things sure happened.”

“Are you alright?” Azura asks, right to the point. “I know it seems overwhelming, but everyone will be willing to accomodate if you need more space...” Noticing that Corrin is shaking her head, Azura lets the sentence trail off.

“I’m fine. I don’t - I don’t want space. I just wasn’t prepared today, that’s all...” She admits, with a nervous chuckle. “I just need to get some sleep and everything will work better tomorrow. I’ll apologize, a-and tell everyone about what I’ve been doing the last few years, so....there’s no need to worry about me, okay?”

“Corrin...” Azura starts, in a warning voice. “You should tell the truth if you’re having a hard time.”

Corrin pouts. “But I’m not! Or at least, I don’t want to be having a hard time.” Clenching her fists into tight balls, Corrin throws herself onto the bed with a frustrated sigh. “I should be a lot happier than I am...why am I so nervous?”

Moving to sit beside her, Azura places a hand at Corrin’s shoulder, feather-light against the strange armor. “It’s natural to be worried about making a good first impression, and upset when it doesn’t happen. You’ll be fine.”

The other girl sends a guilty look her way, but eventually breathes out and leans into the touch, tension ebbing out of her posture as she does. “I’ll really be fine? Even if they’re mad at me?” She queries, sounding childish - a meekness that doesn’t quite suit her, but is still distinctly _hers_ , a hopeful little voice.

“Even then.” Azura affirms, wondering at the ease with which she will tell Corrin these things she’s reluctant to believe herself. But perhaps that’s only because it’s _true_ in Corrin’s case. Corrin is a dragon with the good fortune of accidentally stumbling back into a home that loves and wants her, rediscovering an entire family. The lost princess of a peaceful and prospering nation.

If she were to be a bit bolder, she’d say Corrin is the embodiment of good luck itself. But that’s waxing dramatic.

Azura has no such luck, and so perhaps that’s why she’s so certain things will work for Corrin where they did not work for herself.

Distracted by her thoughts, she doesn’t notice the way Corrin has practically slumped into her lap until she hugs Azura’s waist. “Hey,” She mumbles, curious red eyes shining up at Azura, “I should probably also go tell the truth about my house, right? It sounded better to lie in my head, but I think that’s what I did wrong.”

“About that...” Corrin perks up at the change in Azura’s expression, and the slow realization dawns on her the longer Azura avoids eye contact, playing her bangs into her hand distractedly in her efforts to look elsewhere.

“Hold on a minute, did you...” Again, Azura evades eye contact, and, resigned, Corrin rolls over and groans into her pillow. “I guess I don’t have to explain it myself, then...still, I feel like a fool.”

Azura pats her on the back a few times, then stands up to stretch. She’d love to be more supportive, but it’s been a while since she had a real bed, and she’s eager to sleep in it. “Get some rest. Worrying all night won’t help you in the morning.”

“Wait!” Corrin says, latching onto Azura’s wrist. Once she’s gone and done it, though, she looks a little hesitant. “Stay with me?”

She looks at Corrin’s bed, still a single meant for a child, and comes to the rather prompt conclusion that she’d still rather go to her chamber. Still, it’s not as if she can abandon Corrin.... Azura gestures for the door. “Certainly. But if we’re going to share a room, I’d recommend mine.”

Corrin beams up at her, all teeth, and Azura leads the way. She takes care to alert some staff that Corrin is coming specifically because she’s outgrown her old bed, and for no more harrowing reasons. She’s pretty sure the diviner doesn’t believe her, but she does wink and say she’ll inform Lady Mikoto.

Once settled, Corrin falls asleep remarkably fast - no surprise, after the day she’s had. Azura allows herself to linger on Corrin’s face, peaceful and contented, framed in locks of white, before turning her back toward the other girl and drifting into a rather comfortable sleep of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good god i never want to have to write that many people in one scene again rifp hahaha. Dining scene, my old foe... Anyhow, I'm aware that Hinoka and Takumi get along a fair deal better than this in the story, and that I might be a little rusty with regards to all of the siblings, but I'm hoping a little grind time and character studying will get me back up to speed. I'm going through fates again and I'm actually liking Takumi a lot more than I did initially - time will tell if I catch any other missed details that help me flush out the siblings a little more. The next few chapters I think I'm gonna try to quarantine the siblings off a bit so I don't have so much going on in any given scene - I really think more than four characters gets a little tedious to keep track of, although that could just be me being a whiny author. I'm hoping to give everyone their due and patch things up a bit before continuing on my way to Plot Town. 
> 
> Last note - thank you so so so much for waiting if you did! I really appreciate the more recent comments (march and just this morning actually!) because you really honestly gave me the kick in the ass I needed to suck it up and continue the story. Thank you for commenting even tho it looked dead! it revived me!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprised by the quick update? So am I! I have this chapter as well as chapter 9 completed, and I was going to hold off at least a week before updating since my abrupt revival, but I realized I'd be busy for the tail end of this week and I got Impatient(TM) so I decided to throw this at you a day or so early, sdjhjkgh. It's also pretty long compared to my usual, clocking in at around 6,000 words oops I couldn't find a better place to stop it
> 
> I've been on a writing kick and it. feels. good. 
> 
> Also Re: Nozoomie's question about seeing the conversation with Mikoto, yes and no? I'm going to switch perspectives on occasion so at some point u will see them in a one on one, but not last chapter's.

In the morning, Azura wakes to find her comfortable rest did not remain so comfortable for the entire eve. Corrin has entangled herself around Azura like a net on a pegasus, a wild mess of limbs and hair in each other’s faces. As much as she’d like to move and relieve herself of her bedhead, Corrin has Azura’s limbs trapped against her body with an impressive grip....

Even her legs can’t seem to move, and she soon discovers why. A tail, thick as a cable and cool to the touch, flips up over them, heavy and difficult to move.

She _would_ marvel at the skill it must have taken to perform this maneuver without waking her up, but alas it does nothing for her current situation. Azura squirms a little until her arm is free, and she uses it to peel Corrin’s head away from her shoulder. “Good morning.”

“Gff Mornin’.” Comes the bleary reply.

“Might you return use of my arms to me?” Azura asks sweetly. Corrin blinks a few times, taking in their positioning more closely, and launches herself away from the bed as if burned. She tumbles over herself and hits her head on the dresser beside the bed. Azura stifles a laugh and sits up herself.

“I didn’t mean to - I was going to move before you - I mean it was an accident, I mean -” Sputtering, the hit to the head doesn’t seem to have phased Corrin a bit, or if it did its importance was greatly outranked by the apparent misunderstanding, and she wraps her arms tightly around her legs and buries her face in the protected space between. “YouwerereallywarmandIgotcold,” She says, all one word.

As if to punctuate it, her tail flips up, the fan of spikes covering her head from view.

“...Huh? When...?” Like a ground squirrel, Corrin’s head pops up out of the protective curl she’d placed herself in, and she blinks owlishly at her tail, grabbing the end of it in one hand. She seems for a moment as if she’s in the midst of puzzling out a complicated arithmetic problem, then scowls and fishes her dragonstone out of her armor where she buried it, stuck between her sternum and the plate scales.

There’s a warm flash, and the evidently offending appendage dissolves. Corrin rubs her eyes and stands, still embarrassed. “If I woke you up, you could have said so...I’m really sorry!”

“It’s fine. I only woke you up because I couldn’t move - I slept rather soundly apart from that.” As if to put a point on the sentence, Azura yawns and stands to stretch out her back. “How did you fare?”

“ _Amazingly_ ,” Corrin sighs in response, eyes closed in bliss. “Beds...wow, they’re the best. I wonder how they make them soft like this? It doesn’t feel like my bed, so it’s not fur, right?”

“I don’t quite know, actually.” Amusedly, Azura gets to work untangling her hair with a hand, reaching for the comb she’d kept in the nightstand. “You should ask someone.”

“I should!” Corrin chirps in the affirmative, rocking back and forth on her feet. “Do you need help with your hair?”

Shaking her head, Azura holds up the comb. “It will be fixed much faster with this in hand. Would you like to use it after me?”

“Eheheh, maybe that’s a good idea...” Trailing off, Corrin follows Azura’s eyes to the tall mirror in the back of the room, which she’s using to check her hair - and she runs up to the thing, curiosity overflowing. “Who-o-oah, have I really changed that much?”

Peering into the reflection, Corrin prods her face, pulling at the skin beneath her eyes and prodding the curve of her jaw. “I look like an adult..... I guess I am one, by now...”

Azura tugs the comb through a particularly stubborn knot, once, twice, then three times, before it comes undone and straightens out to the silky length it usually has, A few more quick brushes, and she gets up to stand beside Corrin, startling the other girl with a hand on her shoulder before starting to go through her hair with the comb. “Has it been a while since you saw yourself?”

“I guess I never thought about it.” She replies sheepishly. “It’s been a long time since I saw a mirror, though.” A pause, then an impish grin, slowly spreading across Corrin’s face. “Do I always look this good?”

Azura tugs the comb through a knot roughly, and Corrin flinches. “Arrogance isn’t a good look on you.” She teases. “Although I’ll admit it’s not without merit.”

Corrin just giggles and runs her fingers through the combed hair, which _apparently_ sticks up like that naturally. The laugh is infectious - it seems yesterday’s poor mood is but a memory by now. It’s fascinating to see how quickly Corrin rebounds from what she had considered to be a disaster the day before, and Azura can’t help but feel a little encouraged by her. To have some of that same confidence, bold and cheery...maybe people would like her more.

There’s a knock on the door, and Azura quickly finishes pulling the comb through Corrin’s hair one last time. “I should answer.”  
  
“No worries, I’ll get it!” Corrin brushes past her and makes for the door before Azura can even begin to suggest that Corrin shouldn’t answer the door to _her_ room, but by that point the other girl has already slid it open.

Takumi stands in the hall, already dressed and preened for the day but somehow looking entirely out of his element. At the sight of Corrin, he looks even more perturbed. “Good morning.”

Not to be outdone, Corrin looks about as hesitant as her brother. “Oh, um....good morning.”

Silence dregs on throughout the room for a few stifling seconds and, despite the fact that this is happening in the doorway of her room, Azura feels the distinct impression that she’s intruding.

Both of them move at the same time.

“I’m really sorry about yesterday!”

“I came to apologize for yesterday-”

There’s another prolonged pause. Corrin clears her throat before it gets longer. “U-uh, you first.”

“No, you go first.” Takumi responds insistently, arms crossed protectively across his chest, as if for security.

Azura is silently grateful there are no clocks in her room, but luckily both of them are seeming to realize the conversation will move at some point, and there’s no point putting it off. Corrin obliges and goes first. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you over dinner. I didn’t mean it.” She twists some hair around her finger, looking down. “I’m sorry.”

Looking bashful, Takumi turns his head away from Corrin. “...I was being harsh, and forgot my manners. I apologize for putting you on the spot like that.”

With a low hum, Corrin suddenly thrusts her arm out, causing Takumi to take a step back. “Since we’re both sorry, I guess we can forgive each other!” Expectantly, she looks to their hands. A bit affronted by the simplicity, and still wary, Takumi eyes her hand as if to check for some sort of trap.

When he finds none, he sighs and takes her hand. “Thank you. I’ve also come to invite you to breakfast with the rest of us. Mother says it’s fine if you don’t come, but -”

“Sounds great! Azura, are you ready?” Finding himself abruptly ignored as Corrin turns around to fish Azura out of the back of the room where she has been (rather successfully) attempting to pretend she wasn’t there, Takumi takes the time to step back into the hall, possibly to allow himself to relax his posture, which has been tense the whole time.

Corrin takes Azura by the hand. “I didn’t expect that. I guess you were right, Azura - everything is going to work out! I wonder what they’re going to have for breakfast? I didn’t have time for seconds last night, but if I could, I definitely would have. Is all the food going to be this good?”

“If it is, I pity the chefs responsible for making the extra portions,” Azura replies wryly, but she doesn’t let go of Corrin’s hand. Hearing Corrin echo Azura’s advice and call it helpful sets butterflies of all sorts loose in her chest. It’s a good reminder that even people like Corrin need the occasional reassurance, and a reminder that someone did at least want her around.

“Oh! I forgot something! Give me just a second, okay?” Corrin rushes back into the room, and Azura moves ahead without her for a moment.

In the hall, Takumi mumbles a morning greeting to her as well, still looking just a bit bashful. Azura gives him a wry look. “I don’t suppose that apology was out of the goodness of your heart. Did Ryoma ask you to come?”

“...Maybe,” He admits. “I do realize I was being pushy, I just...can’t believe it’s this easy. There has to be a catch somehow.”

“I understand the feeling.” Her agreement must startle him, because he looks at her curiously. She thinks back to the evening before, and is able to admit to herself that his concerns over Nohrian intentions are valid ones. Garon would do anything, including sending a threat alongside a well-meaning person, to get at Hoshido. “It’s good to be cautious, Takumi. Just don’t let it get to the point of cruelty.”

“‘Don’t be a jerk.’ Touching advice.” Takumi remarks, but he smiles at her. “I’ll keep that in mind. You could stand to be a little less blunt yourself, though.”

“That’s different - It’s charming when I do it.”

Amused, she watches the look of protest on his face before Corrin arrives with her hair neatly brushed. She’s also found a hairpiece, a black hairband Azura had when she was younger. “Look what I found! Do you mind if I wear it, Azura?”

Azura nods. “Help yourself. I have my own.”

The three of them walk in more or less contented silence until Corrin pipes up, halfway to the dining room. “Hey, Takumi?”

“...Yes?”

Corrin brings a finger to her chin. “What are the beds made out of?”

* * *

“What makes a bed soft? Why are you asking me?” Appearing confounded, Hinoka leans back in her chair at the dining table, like the answer is going to be written on the ceiling. “It’s feathers, right? Pegasus feathers are really soft.”

“That sounds about right,” Azura concurs, thinking back to the sensation of laying in bed. They’re firm enough, but that could easily be achieved with feathers using the bedframe and a simple woolen blanket laid beneath the bed proper.

“I don’t know,” Takumi says, crossing his arms. “That answer doesn’t feel right either. How many feathers would a bed need, then? It has to be wool.”

Corrin’s question had led to a bit more debate than she had anticipated, and the three of them had puzzled over it in circles until they got to Hinoka, who they hoped to be a tiebreaker. It went something like this: Corrin would recommend some type of fur or another. Takumi would shoot the suggestion down as false because it wasn’t efficient or Azura would say, in an offhand manner, that it was too lumpy to feel right. Corrin would move to other suggestions from things she knew, often ranging into the absurd - snow, perhaps, since it had enough give to it? Maybe water, sealed tightly through some sort of magic? And they’d be right back where they started.

“Whoah, whoah, hold on!” Corrin cries. “Wool is a fur! That means it is just a bunch of furs in a sack, and I was right!”

“What?” In disbelief, Takumi stares over at Corrin. “Wool isn’t fur, it’s hair. We can collect it without killing the animal.”

Unconvinced, Corrin levels her gaze on him. “What’s the difference between wool and fur? An animal grew it, so it’s fur. It sounds simple enough to me. But Azura said it didn’t feel like furs, so that means it’s feathers or something else.” She says stubbornly. Azura is enjoying the spectacle too much to tell Corrin that wool actually _isn’t_ a fur.

“Of course there’s a difference between hair and fur! You just don’t know what you’re talking about.” Frustrated, Takumi huffs and settles into his chair with his arms crossed.

Corrin purses her lips, clearly doubtful, but the rest of the family comes in to eat before there’s a chance to continue the discussion.

Mikoto takes her place at the head of table and beckons for the servants to start laying out the meals while she looks to the children that have already gathered. “What were you four discussing just now?”

“Corrin wanted to know what the beds here are made of, so we were guessing.” Azura explains, since Corrin is busy looking like she wants to stick her tongue out at Takumi, and Takumi is busy looking like he has more important things to do than talk about wool and hair and feathers, and Hinoka still looks a bit stumped by the question in the first place. Breakfast has been set out, now, and the rest of them start eating.

“Oh? I didn’t realize it was such a subject of debate. Most of the beds here in the castle are made with wool,” Takumi’s face leaks into a victorious grin, here, though it’s not long to last - “Or feathers.” Mikoto concludes. Hinoka makes a soft, celebratory sounding “hah!”, to which Corrin also grins. “The softest beds, which we keep in our rooms and guest rooms for nobility, are stuffed with Kinshi and pegasus feathers.”

“Cool,” Corrin chirrups approvingly. “I wish I’d thought of that. My bed wasn’t anywhere near as nice.”

Hinoka and the rest of them wince, likely remembering Azura’s advice the night prior, and seem reluctant to comment, but Mikoto pushes forward, unfazed. “I’m glad you like your room here, then. I hope the rest of the castle lives up to your expectations.”

“Actually, I slept in Azura’s room!”

The blunt correction, to Corrin’s own mother and the reigning Queen no less, nearly causes Azura to choke on her food. Utterly unaware, Corrin blunders on, even as Azura can feel her foster siblings’ eyes turn to her like clockwork. “The bed in my room was too small for both of us, so she said her room was a better pick.”

Even Mikoto is staring at her now, and Azura somewhat wants to get up, find a lake, and take her chances in Valla rather than address this conversation. “Corrin asked to share a room,” She defends weakly, “And I didn't want to turn her down just because we’d have to share a bed.”

Takumi looks like he doesn't believe her, but Sakura, at the very least, seems to have missed the bulk of the conversation, because she smiles at both of them. “A sleepover! I wish I hadn't gone to bed so early, o-or I would have liked to join in..”

“Why don’t we have one tonight?” Corrin suggests breezily. “I’m not too familiar with the castle, so I didn't want to be alone last night. Why don't we all pick a room and have a sleepover there? That way I’ll get to know the rest of you _and_ the layout!”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, sister.” Ryoma hasn't spoken much this morning, eating his meal quietly and simply following the discussion as it goes, but he now speaks in an approving tone. Corrin seems conflicted, both appreciating the praise and hesitating at the familial term. “I was actually pondering a similar idea myself. I had hoped to show you around the district today.”

Hinoka speaks up, now, having polished off all of her food in record time. “Hold on a minute! I was going to take Corrin around on Tana today.”

“O-oh....I guess Hana and I could have teatime today instead...” Sakura’s comment seems to be more for herself than for the others.

Azura sighs. It would seem everyone made plans with Corrin...without actually informing Corrin herself. “Did you not have time to sort your plans out last night...?” She muses, more of a question for herself than them. It’s too quiet for the royal family to hear, luckily.

Poor Corrin looks absolutely overwhelmed. On the opposite side of the table, Takumi stands and stretches his arms out. “Well,” He starts, glancing around the table. “ _I_ am going hunting with Hinata and Oboro for the weekend, so I’d best be off early. Good luck sorting this out.”

“You’re going hunting?” Eagerly, Corrin latches onto the familiar phrase - a promise of not only outdoors, but something she’s good at. “I’m great at that, you know! Why don't you take me along?”

“What?” The archer looks at Corrin like she’s grown a second head. Even Azura is a little floored by the sudden suggestion.

Hinoka and Ryoma exchange uneasy glances. “Corrin...” Ryoma starts carefully, “Are you sure you don't want to get acquainted with the castle before you go on any trips?”

With a shrug, Corrin tips her head to one side. “Well, if I’m going to live here now, I should have lots of time for that later. I want to go help Takumi.”

“I could show you how to fly,” Hinoka coaxes, leaning forward in her seat. “Hunting birds while they're up in the air is a whole new kind of thrill!”

“No, thanks. I already know how to fly. It’s tiring.” Corrin doesn’t seem to understand that Hinoka means on a pegasus, but a rejection is a rejection. Hinoka practically collapses into her seat, laying her head down on the table like a long-neglected plant that’s finally up and wilted.

The rest of them turn their heads to Sakura, the last line of defense in steering the hapless Corrin away from inviting herself on Takumi’s clearly private hunting trip.

“Umm....” Sakura, feeling the pressure, stalls for time. She looks between Mikoto, Takumi, and Ryoma for reassurance, but finds none. Her eyes turn to Azura. ‘ _Somebody save me,_ they seem to scream, _why is everyone looking at me for answers?_ ’

Azura clears her throat and tries to subtly gesture to Mikoto - more specifically her collar, adorned with feathers. She mouths the word “bed” to her, and Sakura’s eyes light up. She has been saved. She knows how to salvage this.

“Umm, Corrin, there won't be any soft beds if you go camping...”  Everyone at the table holds their breath.

“Aww, shoot! You're right, Sakura.” Corrin tips her head back, deep in thought. “I guess we’ll just have to catch a lot of birds!” She concludes cheerfully.

Azura closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and tries to count to ten. She thinks she hears a muffled groan from somewhere in the room

“Well, Takumi?” Mikoto isn’t so unperceptive she hasn’t noticed her youngest son’s reluctance to take Corrin along, but she is gentle instead of prying when she asks, “Is it alright if Corrin goes with you?”

He looks around the room at the rest of them, Corrin’s hopeful obliviousness and everyone else’s silent pleading, and he dips his head. “The more the merrier,” He says, even if he has to force it out. “But we’re going to have to meet them soon if we want to get to the best hunting grounds by midday. Do you need to bring anything?”

Corrin shakes her head, then looks over to Azura, indicating her with her head. Azura bows out before Takumi can say something begrudging about letting her come along. “Sorry, Corrin, but I’ve never been much for hunting. I would only slow you four down, so please accept my apologies and enjoy yourself without me.”

“Oh, that’s okay!” Corrin reassures. “It probably would have been rude to ask you along without Takumi’s permission anyway.” Azura swears she can see Takumi’s brow twitch at this, as if barely refraining from informing Corrin that she just invited _herself_ along in much the same manner, “I’ll bring back something cool for you, though!”

“We should be on our way.” Takumi grunts.

“St-stay safe!” Sakura calls after them, and the duo both wave goodbye before stepping out the front doors.

Mikoto pushes her emptied plate away from herself and takes a deep breath, turning her attention on the rest of them. “Oh, dear...I hope those two can get along on their trip.”

“You took the words from my mouth, mother.” Ryoma agrees. “But if Corrin is as good as she claims, perhaps this will be an interest they might bond over. We will have to wait and see.”

Azura hums her agreement. “I’m sure they’ll be fine...” Even though she reassures them with her words, in her mind she’s just as nervous as the rest.

Silently, she wishes Corrin good luck, and hopes for her sake she doesn’t get up to anything too foolish.

* * *

Finally stepping outside of the castle after what amounted to nearly a full day of being indoors is a literal breath of fresh air. Corrin inhales, letting the smell of trees comfort her again. She wouldn’t admit it to Azura, but she’d felt....scared, last night. Turning in her sleep and having that same nightmare that once plagued her - that man, the arrows, the blood - and the only thing to settle her heart was Azura herself, a reminder that not everything was unfamiliar. She’s only known her for a short time, but Azura calms her down just by being around, with her soft, kind voice and her soft, blue hair....

Corrin shakes her head. She’s distracted, but it seems like she has more to think about in the past few days than she’s had in all her life, and her mind goes a mile a minute. She’s in the capital of Hoshido, now.

 _Home_ , if Mikoto is to be believed. She’d like to believe her.

She’d like to be happy here, but that gnarled knot in her stomach and mind make her afraid. What if she _isn’t_ their Corrin? What if she’s some - some imposter, what if they find out and don’t want her anymore?

A few days out in the elements should ease her heart. Corrin taps her breastplate and feels the gentle shove of her dragonstone against her chest. As long as she has this, she’s normal. Someone they can like.

She eases into a grin when she looks at Takumi. She thought he didn’t like her at first, but if he’s letting her come along now then he really must have meant it when he made up with her this morning! She’s glad they can get along. “So, what are your friends like?”

He seems taken off guard by the question, and takes a moment to ponder it while he leads the way to - well, wherever he’s leading the way to. Corrin still doesn’t know her way around here. She tries not to get too distracted by all the sights and sounds, the buildings and city littered with more people in one place than Corrin has seen in a decade. “Hinata and Oboro are my retainers, both loyal and good at what they do. They’re the best of the best with their weapons of choice - just like their master.” He holds up the odd, stringless bow she’s seen him carrying around, and seems to puff out his chest just a bit more. A glowing bowstring manifests.

It smells. Not in a bad way, just a strange way. Ethereal, almost. Corrin kind of wants to get closer to it, but she knows from the proud way Takumi displays it that it’s an incredibly treasured possession - she wouldn’t dare take her chances getting too close to his prize that way.

Still, that nagging feeling in her brain tells her the weapon is Important with a capital I. She’s smelled it before, on a sword with a name - Seigfried, she thinks distantly. And on Ryoma’s! They all seem muddled up together - but what do they have in common?

She’s been quiet too long. Corrin’s mouth sputters into gear before her brain. “Why does it glow?” She asks instead, and then when she’s fully caught up, blinks. “Oh, no! We forgot arrows! This is my fault, I must have distracted you by coming along so last minute....”

Of all the reactions, she doesn’t expect him to laugh. “Hah! I guess you haven’t heard of the Fujin Yumi, have you? Here, watch carefully.” Takumi leads her slowly away from the street they’ve been travelling along, out into a small grotto of trees separate from the town, and pulls on his bowstring.

Corrin marvels as an arrow of pure light manifests between his fingers, knocked and ready to go, and he releases it into the tree, leaving a charred mark - a perfect circle in its trunk. As she feels the burnt wood, he explains. “My bow is a divine weapon. It chooses who wields it.”

“It’s really cool!” She says earnestly. “That must mean you’re really good with it.”

“Naturally!” Takumi sounds happy, so Corrin takes it as a sign they’re moving the conversation in the right direction. “We’re not far from the place I asked Oboro and Hinata to wait. Follow me.”

He weaves the two of them back into the cobble roads, and Corrin tries not to meander too much, but the city is just so exciting...! Before she really catches herself, she finds herself drifting off, peering curiously at vendors with odd masks and shining gems, and oh, this woman offered her some food -

There’s a tug on her arm and a beleaguered sigh. “Didn't I ask you to follow me?” Takumi sighs, vexed. “And you should be more careful about accepting food from strangers. You’re traveling with a prince - someone might have tried to poison you.”

“Poisiommf?” Corrin queries, around a mouth full of red bean dumpling. She swallows it. “Why would anyone do that?”

He shakes his head. “If you’re that naive, I pray you never have that question answered.”

It sounds kind of cool, and sufficiently mysterious, but Corrin still has no idea why anyone would try to kill their own prince. Don’t the people here like the royal family? That’s what she heard as a child in Nohr, anyway...She shrugs it off. “She gave me a second one, if you want it.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Corrin shrugs it off and digs into the second dumpling. It’s incredibly sweet, a taste she’s unused to - although she could certainly stand to get more used to it. The food distracts her well enough that she can follow Takumi without getting spirited away by other aspiring vendors.

They make their stop at a small, stout building, with intricate archways of red and black. Takumi leads her through the sliding paper doors and Corrin follows dutifully behind, closing the door behind herself before -

There’s a rush of air and a sudden flare of pain, a blunt force striking her in the chest and knocking the wind out of her. The back end of a lance rests squarely on her chest. Corrin tracks the end of the pole to a girl making a face like a demon, baring her teeth at her. Corrin returns the favor with a low snarl, lip curling to reveal fangs. The sight of them must cause the girl to falter, because for an instant her hold on the lance slackens, and her expression shifts to one of fear.

It doesn’t last, and the efforts are redoubled. “What are you following Lord Takumi around for?!” The girl-demon demands, but before Corrin has time to defend her position Takumi pulls her lance away.

“Hold, Oboro! Corrin, you back off too!”

The pressure on her chest is removed, and Corrin remains tense against the wall, sealing her lips tightly. She has to bite down to keep them that way. ‘Oboro’ turns to face Takumi. “What is a _Nohrian_ doing following you around? Those clothes aren’t like any I’ve seen around Hoshido.”

“I’m fully aware. However, she is coming along on our hunting trip at the behest of my mother. Her name is Corrin, and my mother wants us to get along.” He explains deftly. “Where’s Hinata? I should probably confront him as well before there’s another mishap...”

Oboro scowls, but gestures to the back door. “He’s training out back.”Takumi nods and heads in the direction indicated, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

Corrin still can’t seem to get her heart to slow down, and she doesn’t budge an inch away from the wall she’s still backed up against. Make a good impression, make a good impression, make a good impression... she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to take a deep breath. Her pulse won’t calm down. The dragonstone pulsates against her sore chest. It feels like someone’s sitting on her throat.

“N-nice to meet you.” Corrin chokes out. Nailed it.

Oboro gives her a critical look, but anything is better than that terrifying face she’d greeted her with. The blue haired girl squints and leans in closer, taking in every aspect of her face and outfit. “...On second glance, you aren’t from Nohr after all, are you? You don’t look like a native.”

With a near-mechanical shake of her head, Corrin replies. “I was only raised there.” Another scary look flashes across Oboro’s face, so she hastily adds onto it. “I’ve been living out of the country for a long time now though! I don’t r-really know much about Nohr _or_ Hoshido...”

“Don’t die ignorant, then.” She replies with a dismissive snort. “Nohrians are evil, plain and simple.” Her tone doesn’t leave much room for questioning, so Corrin doesn’t try it.

It seems like an oversimplification, though.... Rebuffed as she may have been, those sweet memories of her friends and the family she’d stayed with won’t leave her mind. Those treasured days...there’s no way they were a lie!

Right?

Still fretting and not quite calm, Corrin looks up when she hears footsteps outside the main hall. The door slides open and a grinning young man arrives, alongside Takumi. “No kidding? Aw, and I was looking forward to some lord-retainer bonding time! Who’s the fresh meat?”

“Hinata, meet Corrin. Corrin, Hinata.” Takumi gestures between the two, and where Oboro had been distrustful, Hinata is friendly, offering his hand readily. Corrin takes it and tries to match the energy he shakes her hand with.

“Nice to meetcha. Why’s her Highness want you to come along, anyway? A new retainer? You should know, me an’ Oboro have it covered.” He still appears friendly, but there’s a challenge in his voice. “If you want a job, you’re gonna have to beat us both in combat!”

Corrin shakes her head. “I just like hunting.” It’s a chance to show off and blow off steam at the same time. And if she’s useful, doesn’t that mean her relationship with Takumi will only improve? She just wants everyone to get along, and she can see that he’ll take the most convincing.

“Mother thinks she’s my sister, so she has us playing nice.” That...sounds like it’s a good thing, right? That he wants to get along too?

“Thinks?” Oboro questions, looking to Corrin for confirmation. “Isn’t that the sort of thing you’d know?”

“I can’t remember, honestly. I just know I was kidnapped at a young age. Whether I’m royalty or not is a different story.” It’s easier to admit here than in front of Ryoma or Hinoka, who both seem so certain about her heritage, and it’s especially easier than in front of Mikoto herself. Admittedly, Corrin can feel...something, from the older woman. Some familiar scent, perhaps, or a distant recognition of her own features.

Still, should she feel hurt that Takumi seems openly resistant to the idea of them being related? That’s another reason that it’s important she go on this trip. She should make things right between the two of them.

Her face settles into one of determination: she will have to be as useful as possible, to clear the air after her shameful lie the day before. Surely, then, she will have his trust and she can get back to puzzling out her heritage at her own pace. Or maybe convincing him they're related will convince herself...?

“Are we ready to go yet?” At the prompting, Corrin nods, finally stepping away from the door. The others in the room concur, and they start along a dirt path leading toward the woods nestled between high hills.

For the most part the trio seem content to ignore her, and Corrin doesn’t mind all that much, focusing on getting acquainted with her surroundings and breathing in the fresh air. New birds, new trees....different squirrels, too. Maybe she should get one of both kinds, grey and red, so she can show Azura the difference. But, on second thought, Azura probably wouldn’t like that....she seems to like animals, and seeing them hurt must make her sad.

Corrin deflates a bit at that. That must be why she didn’t want to come hunting....she’s such a fool for not noticing earlier. Azura is so sweet, even to forest creatures she must seem an angel...and what has Corrin done but hurt things? Does Azura think less of her for coming along...?

So caught up in her thoughts is she that Corrin almost doesn’t catch it when Oboro addresses her. “Hey. I don’t mean any offense, but you’re dressed awfully strangely. Where did you get those clothes? I haven’t been able to figure it out, and it’s been bothering me.”

“I....don’t know.” Although the more she thinks on it, the stranger it seems. They’re undamaged by her transformations, always accommodating when she’d fail to shift back normally - and mended perfectly on other occasions. When she has her wings out, there are slits, and when she does not, there aren’t. When she ran away, she was small - now she knows herself to be an adult, so surely she grew. “I must have had them for a very long time, and I think they’re enchanted somehow.”

Oboro clucks her tongue. “Well....I can think up a few nicer outfits for you, but I’ll admit your clothes have a certain style to them. Now....what about the rest of you?”

“The rest of me? I don’t understand.”

The retainer merely gestures to Corrin. “I can’t see any makeup on you, but truth is stranger than makeup in this case! Back in the dojo I thought you were going to eat me!”

“You were pretty scary looking yourself, you know...” She turns away with a blush, embarrassed at the reminder of their incident. Even if she was being threatened, that kind of reaction won’t cut it in polite society. She has to work on it. “It’s only my face. I’ve always looked this way. I think I know why...”

Before she can say it, though, her train of thought is interrupted. “Aw, blast! Forget the makeup talk, you aren’t carrying a weapon! Dawn dragon almighty, you might’ve thought to say something before we got halfway to the hunting grounds!” Hinata bursts in, gesturing to Corrin’s empty belt. He goes to rummage through the rather sparse equipment he and Oboro have been carrying, sticking his arm into Oboro’s pack before being swatted away. “What do you use, anyway? It’s no bow, but I might have a spare katana...or maybe you’re a trapper?”  

At this, Corrin smiles and fishes her dragonstone out of her armor. “No, I’ve got it right here.”

“A beastrune!” Oboro exclaims, recognizing the object (well, sort of). “That explains it - geez, I really put my foot in my mouth, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to say you were strange in an unflattering way.”

“That’s okay.” She hums, looking over the stone herself. “I can't imagine a flattering way to make faces at someone.”

Takumi watches the stone curiously. “You know, I showed up too late to see it yesterday, but is it true you held your own against Ryoma?”

She nods dutifully. “He would’ve won if Azura didn’t stop us, though. He’s really strong!”

“Lasting a minute against him is impressive!” Hinata chimes in. “He knocks me flat in seconds, and I’m the best retainer there is!”

“I’m going to kindly ignore that comment,” Oboro says in a warning tone, “But Lord Ryoma _is_ very powerful. I’m amazed you held out at all.”

Corrin blushes. As usual, she’s unsure if this is a compliment - being good at fighting is only a credit if you’re engaging your foe willingly, right? Corrin was scared witless when she was fighting Ryoma. She was barely cognizant of the fight at all. It was just...surviving.

“Why don’t you show us what you can do?” Takumi suggests suddenly, and then everyone is looking at her expectantly. Corrin thumbs her dragonstone anxiously. It’s like a flock of sparrows have been set loose in her chest. The stone should mean she’s safe to be around, right...?

Azura said it would, and she would never lie. Corrin steels herself. This is for the sake of improving her relationship with Takumi, after all....!

“Alright, if you really want me to...Give me a moment.”

She focuses her energy on the stone, and when she gives way to the dragon she finds it burns a little less than normal. White-hot blood courses through her veins, and she drops to her knees, clutching her head as her arms lengthen and harden, bending out of shape. Her head burns; it grows dark. Her wings burst forth like hatching, and with a roar she rears back on suddenly longer, suddenly _sturdier_ limbs, tail thrashing.

Her heart thunders, beating from a different place than normal, pounding in her ears.

Corrin stands suddenly stock still, breathing in, and out. Vision creeps back to her, though only in a thin range. She can see more through the sense and smell of things, a thorough outline of what’s in front of her. It’s often easier to close her eyes entirely.

There is no crushing or fleeing urge. She’s in control. She’s still mindful of herself, her precarious form. Corrin lets out a sigh of relief at the same time Hinata’s jaw snaps back from where it’s been hanging open.

“Oh, holy crap.” He breathes.

Corrin laughs nervously, an echo of her true voice distorted by her dragon form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet You Weren't Expecting THIS *throws corrin at, ostensibly, my least favorite birthright sibling*
> 
> Anyway, this is the first time we've switched over to Corrin's perspective. I wasn't sure how I felt about it because interpreting her actions is like 8x more fun than actually describing why she does them, but from here on out it's going to become a story necessity to use her POV, so I'll have to get more comfortable in it. The majority of the story I will attempt to keep in Azura's perspective, but there are too many scenes where she just feels out of place. Granted she always feels that way, but passive observation does not a compelling narrative make, you dig? Sometimes it can be good, but other times...not so much, lmao
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back with another timely update!! God, i could really get used to this whole "writing the story in advance so i have backup chapters if i get writer's block" thing. who knew it was this nice amiright sjkdghsdjkgh
> 
> anyway here u go!

The three other members of the hunting party stand around Corrin with mixed expressions - mainly awe, or at least that’s what she hopes it is. She can’t quite get a read on their faces, only the positioning of their bodies. She never quite noticed how _bad_ her eyesight is like this until now.

She’s hyper-aware, now, in a way she’s not quite used to even has a dragon. This is the first time she’s tried it without the hazy impression that this is normal; her more draconic side sorting out all the sensory input. Every twitching movement of the trio catches her attention.

Corrin flicks her tail nervously from side to side. Takumi seems inclined to step toward her, but rocks back on his feet after a moment, apparently dissuaded by something.

Is she scary? She’s trying so hard not to be, is it not working? Unbidden, the memory of Azura that first night comes to her, shaking and pale, and Corrin stiffens all over again.

So instead it’s Hinata that talks. “You’re a _dragon?!_ This is so awesome!” he approaches, and while she shies away when he gets too close to her neck, she lets him fiddle with her wings as much as he pleases. The samurai lifts one up to peer at the scaled torso beneath, while she cranes her neck around to watch him do so.

“I’ve never seen anything like this... are you a manakete? I thought they all went extinct.” Oboro speaks up from the other side and Corrin almost jumps at how sudden it is, but manages to avoid knocking Hinata over and turns to look at her.

A manakete, huh....? Azura said the same thing. What’s a manakete? They can’t exactly be extinct if she is one...so she has to be something else. Human, preferably. So Corrin shakes her head.

Takumi speaks up, finding his voice as well. “The royal family of Hoshido does have the blood of the Dawn Dragon running through our veins. It’s _possible_ , if not _likely_ , that Corrin inherited a more potent strain.” He explains.

That sounds...complicated. It’d make sense if they were related, she guesses, but then why wouldn’t they be able to do it if they all had the same parents?

“ _Did you want me to do something?”_ The voice that resonates out of her mind is almost completely foreign to herself; surely she sounds different normally? But she’s never been able to speak as a dragon before this, so it must be the effects of the stone that are helping her. “ _I don’t mind, but...”_

“No, you’re right. We’re losing daylight the longer we stop to gawk at you. I’ll see what you’re made of soon enough.” She sees the outline of Takumi turn away from her and begin marching down the path again. Corrin follows once more, keeping a slow pace behind him. He speeds up. Corrin noses along behind him. Her horns bob alongside his ponytail, occasionally catching on it.

Takumi turns around and swats at her nose, a move she narrowly avoids by rearing her head back to its full height. “Would you cut that out? I need _some_ space!”

“ _Sorry, Takumi.”_ Although she’s speaking in her mind, she can’t help but speak aloud, too, a mournful chirp. She follows along from further behind after that, idly watching Hinata vanquish pretend enemies with the katana.

Eventually they make their way into the woods and Corrin watches closely as the three of them pitch two tents together. “You and I will be sharing since we’re both girls - I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’d prefer you go back to human size when we’re sleeping, if only for the sake of space.” Oboro says, and Corrin nods eagerly. “Great. In that case, it’s time to start setting traps - at least, me and the others are. I guess you can just get started as is, can’t you?”

“ _I guess so!”_ It seems a convenient excuse to distance herself from them, so Corrin slips into the foliage not long after the last part of camp has been set up, and keeps walking until she can no longer sense their presence nearby.

Ahh.....relief at last. Corrin folds her legs up beneath herself and curls her head around, creating a tight ball. The grass is soft, the sun is shining, and there’s not a trace of brick nor settlement nearby. She could just melt....

The sound of hoofsteps reaches out to her, and she lifts her head to get a look at it, like a periscope. Something warm and noisy is in that direction....

It clears up after a moment - a boar is nosing around some herbs several dozen yards away, noisily chewing on the leaves. Corrin rises to her feet, but keeps her body low. The outline of its body grows more detailed the closer she creeps.

As much as she’d _like_ to rest, she has a point to prove. She’ll be the most helpful hunting companion there ever was!

* * *

“Holy smokes! You caught all that on your own?!” After catching a reasonable amount of food, at least for the amount of people gathered, Corrin retired back to the campsite and transformed back into a human. It was a boring couple of hours before anyone got back, but she amused herself well enough, drawing pictures in the dirt and humming, trying to recall that song Azura had sang for her.

Corrin smothers the latest drawing when Hinata calls out to her, a slipshod attempt to recreate Mikoto’s face from memory. She’d already done Azura and just about everyone else she met recently. Before that, she made now-erased visions of the Nohrians she’d known, well-worn from practice but woefully outdated.

She straightens up. “Hey, Hinata! How have you guys been faring?”

He whistles, off-key. “Not nearly as well, although we’re hoping the traps we set up will bag us a few tomorrow. Still.... Look at your haul! Is there anything left to trap?”

“I didn’t overdo it, right...?” Uncertainly, Corrin glances back to the boars she’d brought back with her, and the admittedly growing pile of pheasants and ducks. She dips her head, sheepishly. “I know we can’t actually eat that much boar, but I thought one of you might know how to preserve the meat so we can bring some back with us.”

The sound of trampled underbrush catches her attention, and Takumi and Oboro step out from the trees opposite them, the former carrying a string of pheasants proudly. They’re all strung through clean, single-puncture holes, nothing like the marred messes Corrin has brought in. She shuffles to cover up her own mess, standing awkwardly in front of the pile like it’ll block Takumi’s view. “You’re back! How did it go?”

“Very well. I must have gotten three others, but they’re still in the traps.” Detecting the good mood in his voice, Corrin smiles. This is already going well! “How did your trip go?”

“I also had a pretty good time today.” There’s a breeze, and Corrin has to smooth over her hair to keep it from getting in her eyes. The campfire flickers brightly in its pit, dug out and lit before the others got here. Corrin wonders idly when they’re going to cook dinner. She could’ve eaten herself, but she’s learned she’s a terrible cook since coming to Hoshido, and has no intentions of foisting that cooking onto anyone else.

“‘Pretty good’ is one way of putting it! Lord Takumi, you’ve gotta see this!” Before there’s time to ask about meals, Hinata eagerly shows off the burgeoning pile of birds and the three boars Corrin had brought back.

She did a good job, so why is Takumi scowling all of a sudden?

Corrin is quiet at dinner, trying to mull it over. Maybe she did too good? Or maybe he thought her kills were gross, without finesse. Should she just ask him?

The thought nags her well into the night, and not long after they begin settling into bed, she finds herself staring at the tent ceiling, frustrated. Oboro is still awake - she knows because she can hear her tossing in bed, and her breathing isn’t even enough for that of a sleeping person.

“Hey, do you think Takumi is mad at me?” She asks quietly, eyes fixed on the tent flap.

Oboro turns around in her bedroll. “What?” She hisses. She’s making the scary face again. Corrin shies away from her, averting her eyes submissively. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“You’re awake too,” Corrin points out childishly, unable to help herself. “You’ve been tossing and turning for a half hour now, making that scary face at the wall.”

“....Touche.” Oboro admits grudgingly. “Fine, we’ll talk. Sit up and look at me.”

Obliging, Corrin brings her legs up to her chest as she sits on the bedroll, looking curiously at Oboro. She keeps making that scary face....but she forces herself to look at her. “Are _you_ mad at me?”

“I guess not. I just hate sharing a tent with you. Maybe you aren’t really from Nohr, but you still reek like one of them, and it dregs up _unpleasant_ memories.”

Corrin cocks her head, and cautiously goes to smell her pits. What does Nohr smell like? She thinks of cracked earth, a smoky, stifling atmosphere of molten lava. The crisp, cool air of the ice tribe girls. Camilla’s perfume and Elise’s flowers. There are too many smells. She doesn’t think she’s any of them, though. “Sorry. I thought I took a bath.”

“Not _actual_ \- you know what, forget it.” That look finally slips off of Oboro’s face, and she heaves a weary sigh. “It’s obvious enough you’re well-meaning, so I’ll tolerate you for now.” It’s grudging, but she thinks there’s a compliment in there somewhere.

“Thank you~!” Eyes shining, Corrin smiles over at her. She’s not sure what she did, but this is basically making a new friend, right? “Does this make us friends?”

Oboro is less enthused, quickly making a shushing gesture. Corrin nods aptly. “What a child....” Muttering to herself, Oboro runs a hand through her hair. “Okay, so you think Lord Takumi is mad at you, right?” She asks flippantly. “He probably is. He feels like you one-upped him today - even though your style was amateur at best, you did do really well in the field.”

Biting her lip, Corrin thinks back to earlier. Takumi was happy until he noticed she’d done well. So maybe the answer was to do really poorly, or make Takumi do better. “I didn’t mean it like that...Do you think he’d notice if I went and made my pile a little smaller?”

“That’s wasting food!” Oboro scolds firmly, and Corrin droops. “Look, just tone it down a little tomorrow and he’ll be in a good mood again. I know my liege. He’ll put his all into doing better tomorrow, and it will make victory taste even sweeter. In fact, he’ll probably hunt twice as well as you did!” She sounds proud of him, like she really believes in his skill. It’s a relief, at least for Corrin.

“I can do that. Thank you so much, Oboro! I never would have figured that out by myself. You’re really smart!”

She scratches at the back of her neck. “Um, no offense, but now you’re laying it on too thick. Just go to sleep. The sooner you do, the easier I’ll rest knowing you won’t get up in the night.”

With an affirmative nod, Corrin lays down to rest, dreaming lazily of pegasi.

* * *

“Hey, wake up.” Corrin cracks a groggy eye open, then promptly screams, throwing her blanket into the air and scuttling toward the back of the tent.

“G-GAAAH! Why’d you wake me up like that?!” Whining, Corrin clutches at the remainder of the blanket she has in front of her, wilting under Oboro’s unamused expression. To see her leaning over her making _that_ face again. Shivers run through her body, and she swallows.

“Was I doing it again? Shame. I thought I had that all under control.” Breezily, Oboro lifts open the tent flap. “I woke you because we’re about to head out for the day and I didn’t want you to wake up to an empty camp.”

Corrin takes a deep breath. “Thank you...that’s...really thoughtful. Umm, do you think I’d be able to come with the rest of the group today? Just so I can see how you guys do it?”

“If Lord Takumi agrees to it.” She sounds indifferent, so Corrin hurries to scuttle out of the tent after her.

She brings a hand to her chest, where she’s keeping the dragonstone, and releases a sigh. Well, she did a better job than the night before, probably because she’d had a lot more time to herself. She can’t help but grin.

Hinata is doing lunges by the campfire, stretching his legs and arms out. “Morning, sunshines!”

“Hinata.” Oboro returns the greeting flatly. “I’m surprised you aren’t still asleep, truth be told.”

“Maybe I’m not as lazy as you think I am!”

Takumi kicks some dirt over the last of the morning fire, smothering it. “I woke him when I got up.” He says bluntly.

“That explains it.” Hinata sulks, but continues about his business.

Corrin decides to try her luck. “Hey, Takumi. Is it alright if I come with you today?” He glances her way, taking a moment to ponder the question. “I’d really like to see your archery,” Corrin tacks on, hopefully.

“If you want to,” He relents, looking almost bashful. “We’re checking my traps first, though. Oboro, Hinata, you two check everything on the eastern side of the forest.”

“Yes, sir!” The two both grab their bows where they’ve been propped against the boys’ tent, and head off. “Stay safe, Lord Takumi!” Oboro calls.

“Sure, sure.” Waving it off, Takumi takes the Fujin Yumi and starts impatiently for the woods in the other direction. “Corrin, are you ready to go?”

“Umm...” her eyes dart around the camp until she sees that a skewer has been left out from the early breakfast the others must have had, and she takes one up (it looks really tasty) and nods. “Yup! I”ll just eat while we walk.”

The woods here are different from hers, she thinks as they wander through. The trees are tall and changing in color, not the evergreens or oaks she’s used to. The sun shines through the canopy like the trees are waving it along, and a low thrum of bugs and tittering birds accompanies their every movement. Corrin hums again, barely a tune, but something she’s used to doing to amuse herself.

She tears off the last of the skewered meat and jams the arrow it was roasted on through a loop in her armor, not wanting to simply discard it.

Old habits die hard, huh? Maybe she should start a new arrow hoard....no, that’d probably be weird. Maybe those pretty trinkets in the market? But she’d have to find a way to pay for them, of course...

“So....” Looking pressed for answers, Takumi spins the bow shaft in his hand, like he can’t make eye contact with Corrin. His voice breaks her out of her thoughts. “Do you remember what it was like in Nohr at all?”

“It wasn’t as pretty as it is here, but I did spend most of my time indoors. I was housed in a castle away from the capital, near the Bottomless Canyon.” She explains slowly, listing the details as they come to her. “The royal family at the time told me I was injured and had lost my memories. I was to be their sister.”

He makes a face not unlike Oboro’s, twisted in extreme distaste. “Lying cravens...but here’s what I don’t understand - _if_ you’re telling the truth and they wanted you to think you were one of them, why in the gods’ names did they ‘run you out’? You’ve admitted you didn’t escape out of a desire to return to us, since you’d forgotten you had family. So _why_?”

The intense face he’s making at her causes Corrin to stop in her tracks. Thinking about why she ran away...brings a hard knot to her throat. But lying is wrong. Last time, it only made him more suspicious.

She swallows, and he still looks at her insistently, with something a little like hope. Does he _want_ to believe her? She closes her eyes, trying to mentally prepare herself, pick nicer words, things like that. “They thought I was going to hurt them.” Corrin explains in a soft voice. “Because of my ability to turn into a dragon...the king said that I was one day going to be groomed into a weapon. And that my nature tied me too strongly to Hoshido...so they’d have to...make sure I never got to come back here.” By the tail end of it, she’s nearly shaking.

Even so long ago, the events of that day seem so fresh and clear to her mind. She must have gone over them a hundred times.

The axe, broad and gleaming - the way Xander wouldn’t look away, no matter what happened. He didn’t make a sound, but why did his eyes seem so loud? Camilla stared at the ceiling, desperate not to see, but Xander just kept looking forward, forward, forward.

The cursing, the shouting, the attempts to capture her - and her older siblings, running down the wrong hallway, encouraging Hans and Iago to stay hot on their heels.

Did they try to save her? She doesn’t know what they told Leo and Elise. Or Jakob, or Flora and Felicia. Do they remember her face anymore, even after a decade?

It’s hard not to think about it, but she has to force her attention back into the present. Besides...she’s gone over it all already. Corrin just hopes Takumi can hear the sincerity she’s trying to convey.

“......Why not come back?” In the present, Takumi prompts her warily, folding his arms. It’s not as confrontational as it once was, though, and he seems genuinely curious. They maintain eye contact for longer than she thinks they ever have.

Her stomach is doing flips, now. “I didn’t know I had a family...I thought they were right about me! And besides...the shape I was in, I might have been dangerous if I got too startled. You saw what I did to the palace. I’d rather live alone than hurt somebody.”

Takumi finally draws a deep breath, turning his back on her. He slings his bow over his shoulder, casually. “You know what? I believe you. I don’t think you’re lying.”

“Really?” Her heart soars. Corrin is so happy she could shout, and the sun seems to gleam overhead like a soothing blanket. He believes her - and if everyone thinks she’s their lost sibling, including Azura, then there’s no way they can all be wrong at once....!

“But!” The sharp continuation cuts into Corrin’s celebration, making her wilt in misery for just a moment as he turns his eye on her once more - “Just, humor me, okay? When we get back to the castle...would you mind sitting on the throne of truth? Just so we know there’s no...magic, or false memories, or anything. You might even remember living with us before...” He trails off, scratching at an apparent itch across his flushed neck.

“Sure!” Ecstatic, Corrin throws her arms around Takumi, knocking him off balance as he protests, a bit weakly. “If it’ll really help...of course!” She pulls away with a beaming smile. “Umm...How’s it supposed to do that, anyway?”

Clearly still embarrassed by the physical display of affection, Takumi focuses on outpacing her, but still looks back as he talks with her. “It’s enchanted. The throne reveals the true form and nature of any who sit on it, negating any enchantments or illusion magic.”

She’s not completely sure how she’d have those things put on her, but it sounded innocent enough. If nothing’s wrong, nothing happens. If something’s wrong, it goes away and takes her back to normal. Doesn’t sound too bad. “Cool.”

“Now... let’s see what’s in my traps.”

The two of them traverse the wilderness in companionable silence for a while, coming across each trap from the day prior with mixed results. Some were empty, and others did catch things, if not particularly impressive things. After the second snare with a lone squirrel inside is upturned, Takumi grumbles. “On second thought, we’ll get more done if I approach directly. Let’s stake out a deer.”

“Alright!” In a chipper mood and eager to please, Corrin offers up her dragonstone. “Do you want me to find us one? If I turn into a dragon, I should be able to sniff one out.”

“Sure.” He agrees, and Corrin holds her arms out and lets the fire burn her up again.

She’s hoping to get better at it, so it’ll go faster in the future, but for now it takes as long as it does and there’s just no way around it. Takumi seems mildly perturbed by the whole ordeal, but whatever thought he has, doesn’t share them. Corrin stamps a hand-like foot against the ground once, then twice. Focus.....focus.....

Very distantly, she hears movement - but when she turns her head to zero in on it, the vague outlines of Oboro and Hinata appear instead of a four-legged deer. Corrin turns her gaze in the other direction, standing very still. There’s rustling, yet further, but if she extends her reach -

“Find anything?” The sudden interruption has Corrin’s tail standing on end. She doesn’t jump, though.

She turns her head to Takumi. “ _Follow me. We’re pretty far, so you don’t need to tread carefully until I tell you.”_

Grunting in compliance, Takumi allows himself to be led around while Corrin dearly hopes to find something of interest. Fortunately for her, she soon does, and the blurry outline of a _huge_ stag becomes apparent the longer they tread in their direction. “ _It’s a stag. Walk carefully. We’ll go downwind this way.”_

Corrin leads, low to the ground, until the creep up upon the clearing the unsuspecting deer in question has settled in. She feels Takumi pause as he notices it too. She settles slowly off to his side to give him room to use the bow. Slowly, he moves to draw it, and the bowstring materializes. An arrow nocks itself.

Now to wait for that perfect shot.....Corrin somewhat wishes she could see this with her eyes and not merely her outlines, but wouldn’t dare risk the sudden movement that could catch their stag-friend’s attention. Seconds tick by.

Takumi shuffles in his position and Corrin feels the deer tense up. Oh, dear. He’ll have to stay very still for the next few minutes if he wants its head to lower again -

He adjusts his feet again, this time brushing against a bush, and the stag startles and sprints off into the further reaches of the woods. He looses an arrow, too late, but it misses the animal by a foot or so and fizzles out on the forest floor. “Damn!” Takumi says, and loudly. “It must have seen us.”

“ _Actually, I think it heard us. You got too close to that bush.”_ Corrin remarks, craning her head so she can set her weak eyes on the offending greenery.

“Did _not_ ,” Sounding rather offended, Takumi puts the Yumi away. “Either way, it seems to have gotten away from us. It must have seen the sun on your scales, or something.”

Now that’s blatantly untrue, but Corrin, having wisened up from her conversation with Oboro, chooses not to point it out. “ _I could turn back and we can try to catch it at the next stream._ ” She offers instead.

“Good idea. Let’s try that.” Missing his shot seems to have set him off in another tizzy, she thinks, because Takumi stands impatiently for the few seconds it takes to shrink back to normal. Corrin tugs at her shoulder cape, fiddling with the familiar fabric, and he begins following the deer by its tracks.

The duo arrive once more hidden outside the deer’s range of sight. Neither breathes a word, and Corrin gets to watch this time as Takumi draws his bow. The sight of the glowing string appearing out of thin air stirs something in her. What a strange weapon...

Holding her breath, Corrin waits for the deer to provide a chance to strike. Takumi does too, but...she grimaces as he shuffles again. It’s nearly unnoticeable, but to a wild animal? He may as well be talking. Takumi’s fidgeting, just like last time, agitates the brush too much and the stag hears them and takes off. Once more, Takumi fires - but the arrow simply grazes the thing’s antlers. “Blast!”

“You’re going to have to be a bit more patient. He keeps hearing you make adjustments.” Corrin points out helpfully.

Takumi gives her a dirty look. “Maybe it’s just because there’s two of us. I’d have caught the damn thing by now if I was on my own!” He huffs. “I just can’t concentrate with you fussing over me like I’ve never done this before.”

Ahh, so he’s mad again...cowed by the sudden disagreement so soon after they patched things up, Corrin sighs, dejected. “I’ll just try my luck on the other side, then. Sorry if I distracted you.”

Stubbornly, he refuses to wave goodbye. “ It’s fine - I’ll be back at camp as soon as I’ve caught it. Good luck on your end.”

“You too.”

Corrin walks a decent ways off before frustration eventually gets the better of her. What’s enough? Why can’t they stay in agreement for longer than half a day? What is she doing _wrong_ ? What is _he_ doing wrong?

It’s not fair!

Growling, she storms past a tree and swipes at it with an arm she wasn’t aware had transformed. Bark cracks beneath her nails, splintered wood falls between her fingers, blackened and twisted. “Hah....ha........” Corrin draws her hand back, wondering when she did this to herself. “Maybe....I’d better blow off some steam...” She mumbles, feeling a cold wave of shame wash over her. This must be why she’s been having trouble keeping it in check, she reasons. She’s just, still pent up from her fight with Ryoma, or something.

Stress relief isn’t too hard to come by, luckily. There’s another stag in her direction. Corrin grits her teeth and transforms again, not bothering to hold the dragonstone any particular way. Her molten blood burns her again, but standing at her full height is freeing in its own way.

She bounds after the deer and finds herself lying in wait once more, this time with no partner, and a few long, still minutes pass. The buck turns its head, and Corrin rushes toward it, scoring its hide with her antlers and knocking it over. Before it so much as brays out in fear, she clamps her steel jaw around its throat and shakes until it’s dead.

Panting, Corrin lies next to her quarry. It stares up at her, still as can be. Although she killed it quickly, it hasn’t stopped bleeding. She begins to panic.

Around her, the forest warps and twists, her weak eyesight broadening into a full picture, as if she were human again.

_The sanctuary has been violated. Something foul and rotting came into her home, she’ll kill it, she’ll kill it, and none shall ever trespass again - there’s flesh between her teeth, horrific ichor trailing down her face, and she spits the taint out with a raucous roar. The trespasser screams back. She claws and scrapes and tears her way up its back, using flesh as a foothold, and pries the vile mask off its head as if uprooting a plant._

_It dies, and she arches her back and hisses at The Thing. But her sanctuary is not yet clean._

_Kill it, kill it. This place is hers. Hot beating skin rests pinched between her claws and the earth, a neck so easily snapped, pierced, it smells of the same cursed magic, she’ll_ **_kill_ ** _it -_

Corrin recoils from the deer, shrinking back from it. It’s thin throat, ruptured beyond repair, jumped and trembled within her maw in much the same way something else’s might - No, no - ! Sick to her stomach, Corrin turns away from her prey, unable to look at it, but her accute awareness of the still-warm thing does not fade, and the sensitive, twisting things beside her horns still detect its heat. Blood is heavy in her nostrils.

 _Fighting. Someone’s fighting, she’s not at home, it doesn’t look or smell or feel like home, there’s nothing for her here but_ **_her_ ** _and there’s a fight, blood spills down the shoulders and to the ground. He’ll kill_ **_her_ ** _so there’s nothing to do but stop him, subdue him, kill him- acrid fumes build up in the back of her throat, seeking only an ignition, and then the life in front of her will be alight with blue fire._

It’s a full-body shudder that breaks the illusion, opening her suddenly parched mouth, finding herself at the precipice of summoning that very flame.

 _‘I’m not....I’m not like that.....I didn’t mean it..._ ’ She doesn’t know who she’s defending herself from, in her own mind, but she persists in her fruitless efforts. _‘I wouldn’t have - !’_

_A tall, dark shadow falls over her. “Had we let her grow, she could have killed us all.”_

**_“NO - !”_ ** Corrin gasps aloud sharply, as if she’s been suddenly jerked awake from a very deep sleep, or pulled abruptly out of a stream, confusion and aching lungs jarring her into uncomfortable alertness. She’s human again. The shadows of both Azura and Saizo lurk in each corner, one caught by the throat and the other consumed in Corrin’s own flames.

The blood from the deer seeps through her fingers into darkness.

It’s impossible to stand it anymore; Corrin bursts into tears. Her breathing comes muffled and strained, like she’s trying to get air through a thick cloth. Thoroughly unimpressed, her deer watches on through glassy eyes like beads.

She wouldn’t have - she _wouldn’t_ , she couldn’t do that...! The thought of it makes her feel so loathsome she could get ill. She feels like death.

Exhausted, and too focused on her own breathing, Corrin can’t hear the approaching person until it’s significantly too late. “Corrin?”

Takumi’s voice nearly makes her jump out of her skin, and she looks in all directions frantically before landing blurry eyes on him, stepping closer with the Fujin Yumi in tow. It smells, it reeks - that unnatural, burnt smell from her nightmare, eldritch and mysterious. “I heard you scream. What happened?!”

It’s like forgetting how to speak. Corrin stumbles and struggles to find her words, coming up blank. “I....I.....I.......I don’t know....” She whimpers. “I’m sc-sc _ared_...”

“You nearly gave me a heart attack and you ‘ _don’t know’_ what happened? Are you serious right now?” Apparently unappeased by her answer, Takumi grumbles and steps up, offering his hand. “Come on, get up off the ground. You need to relax.”

“No!” She yelps, flinching away from the proffered hand. It has _that scent_ on it. Old, dangerous. The Raijinto that had burned her flesh and scales flashes in her mind.

Hurt flashes across Takumi’s face when she rejects his aid. She’s sorry - she’s _sorry_ , Corrin can’t find her voice fast enough to say it, “What’s _wrong_ with you? You’re acting like a cornered animal!”

Corrin’s heart seems to drop into her stomach. “I need to go.” She says. It sounds right. The phrase repeats. I need to go. I need to go. I need to go i need to go i have to _leave_ -

She doesn’t care if there’s consequences later - Corrin drops all notions of returning to the camp now and runs the opposite direction. It feels like she’s going to die if she stops. Frantic, she racks her brain for any recollection of how they got here. Tall hills, a foot path. She can find these things. Dusk fades to nightfall.

Corrin keeps running. What next - the dojo, and a vending street. Everyone is closing up shop for the evening, and Corrin runs past like a girl possessed.

The square she and Azura found comes next, and Corrin remembers hazily an entrance into the castle via-forced wall entry. She bowls past the guards, lungs aflame. She needs to find her she needs to find her she _needs to_ ,

“Corrin?”

Azura!

She throws herself at the other girl, wheezing and sobbing all at the same time, burying her face in the cloth of Azura’s dress like she’ll drown otherwise. ‘ _She’s alive!’_ A happy voice, in the back of her mind, crows with joy. Corrin hasn’t killed anyone. Garon was wrong. Her memories were wrong.

Bewildered, Azura takes faltering steps back before putting her arms around her. “What happened? What is it?”

Corrin shakes her head, refusing to back off.

Azura places an uneasy hand on her back, digging her fingers into the hard plates of Corrin’s clothing. “Please, speak to me. I can help.”

She sobs again.

‘ _I don’t want to hurt anyone,’_ Corrin thinks, and it’s the only really coherent thought she’s had since she flipped her lid in the forest. This awful, needling guilt in her stomach over things she hasn’t even done... it feels unending.

And all she even managed to do was come running to bother Azura about it....what a coward. Even still, she can’t quite deny herself the simple comfort of knowing she didn’t really hurt her - the physical assurance that her as-of-now only friend is alive is too relieving to pass up on.

She clings tighter to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the inevitable ruin of the camping trip comes to fruition..... 
> 
> LMFAO i know all of u saw this coming from a mile away but a bitch gotta keep the tension going somehow.....don't worry ok im going to try and help everyone feel better next chapter but some Themes And Stuff had to be put on the table here. Rifp Takumi, surprisingly did most things right but alas failed the quick time "comfort your sister having a panic attack" event and has to restart the "getting over your inherent dislike of outsiders" level from scratch :/ (... speaking of, getting that down w/o it feeling too staged was rough but I feel like I did a pretty good job! it's obv a little more dramatic than what i've had experience with but this is also fantasy world with dragons and stuff, so i don't think it's too out there lol.)
> 
> Anyway overly long joke aside, we'll be jumping back into Azura's perspective next chapter, and Corrin will b spending some time with other members of the Hoshido family. Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy pride month! Sorry about the delay in updates, I got swamped with some end of the year projects and stuff. They're all pretty much done now - so I've got time to write/post again! Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long, haha.

Azura’s not sure where Corrin came from. One minute she was returning to her room from the dining hall, and the next she saw Corrin in the hallway, looking utterly distraught. Rather than answering her questions when called out to, she just creates more, sniffling and crying into Azura’s shoulder.

It’s all she can think to do to put a guiding hand on her back and take her back to her room, feeling troubled all the while. “Corrin,” She tries again, attempting to edge the girl off herself, to coax her onto the bed proper so she can look at her while she talks, but Corrin wails and hugs more tightly.

“Corrin, you have to talk to me. Please, calm down.”

It’s no good. Vexed, she rubs her friend’s back once more and begins to hum. It’s an old lullaby, from Nohr. Back in the days Arete would sing for her and the others. The words are old, nearly lost to her, but she’s always remembered the tune.

The first few bars prove ineffective, but Corrin starts to settle as Azura repeats, still rubbing soothing circles into her back. Words come back in fragments, incomplete.

Corrin hiccups eventually. “..A...ura...”

Azura pulls back from her, this time with less resistance, and Corrin’s snot-ridden face greets her. She tries not to think too hard about the fact that that’s all over her clothes, now. “Is everything okay?”

She has the chance to look at Corrin’s state of dress, now, noticing the tangled hair riddled with leaves and a trace of blood against her chest. “Did you get hurt?” Azura asks, tracing the blood with a finger. It comes off easily at her fingertip, and there’s no dent in the armor. She looks up.

“No...” Corrin mumbles into her sleeve, wiping her face off.

“How about Takumi and the others?” She prompts. Did something happen? An attack? But still, Corrin shakes her head, sniffling. Azura sighs, and puts a hand against her shoulder. “Then what _did_ happen? Are you okay, Corrin?”

Corrin fidgets, now, looking trapped. Her eyes find Azura’s, red in more than just the irises, like she’s grieving. She rubs against them with her wrist, trying to stem the tears. “I...I got scared.” she whispers finally, a shared secret. “Even though I’m with people now, I can’t....I can’t reconnect. I’m scared... I don’t want to hurt anyone...”

“And you won’t, Corrin.” Azura presses their hands together tightly, holding Corrin’s up so she’ll follow the movement to Azura’s eyes. “You didn’t before, and now that you have your dragonstone, you’re all the more in control.”

“...have you ever had a bad dream, but while you were awake?” The question seems to be of pressing importance to Corrin, who looks at Azura through her uncombed hair, too concentrated even to brush it aside. Her eyes gleam, red and intense, like flame.

Azura pauses. “I’m not sure I have.” She says, at length. She’s had experiences that _felt_ like bad dreams, certainly, but if only she were so fortunate to know they were dreams. Her mother disappearing before her eyes, her last words heard by no one but herself, the cruelty of Nohr, a number of attempts on her life in Hoshido - and the breathless, speechless soldiers of Valla, staring her down with immeasurable malice.

If only it were a lie.

Corrin is quiet. “I had a nightmare. That day we were attacked in the grotto, and I killed that...thing.” Azura dips her head, indicating that Corrin can continue. Her eyes are shining, focused on nothing in particular, like she’s looking through Azura.

“I thought I killed you, too.” Were it possible, one could hear a pin drop in the room. Even in a voice so subdued as to nearly not be heard, Corrin’s words are precise and audible. “And I had another, of killing that ninja that attacked us - burning him to death.”

She sniffles. Tears well up again, fat and wobbly in her eyes. “I don’t want to think about doing those things...I hate it!” Corrin shouts suddenly. “I hate thinking that I almost hurt someone so terribly! It’s painful... I want to forget about it, but I _can’t._...”

“Everyone has thoughts they don’t like sometimes. Regret and anger are just as much a part of human nature as anything else.” Azura asserts, almost like she’s scolding her. Why should Corrin take so much blame onto her shoulders when there are so many awful people in this world, people that commit atrocities without shame?

“But they can’t act on it.” Corrin says miserably.

Azura draws a deep breath, and inches away from Corrin on the bed. The girl looks despondent for a moment, but she holds her hand up to wave her off. She pulls at the fabric of her dress, moving one of the ribbon-like bands across her abdomen, to reveal one of her worse scars from her time in Nohr. Corrin inhales sharply. “That’s  -”

“From a child. I was perhaps eight, and he was ten at the time. He was hitting me with a gardener's tool because his friends thought it was fun.” She explains, tracing the jagged wound. She’d bled so much he must have thought he succeeded, because she remembers the boy backing off in horror and being left to lay there until someone - gunther, maybe? A passing guard that still experienced sympathy? - took her to the doctor. “People can do cruel, horrible things.”

“But _why?_ ”

For all she’s suffered herself, it’s easy to see that Corrin, fundamentally, trusts people. Even in spite of what happened at Nohr, and _whatever_ set her off in the camp grounds, she just can’t imagine the malice some people are capable of.

Her clear confusion, and the hurt, lost look in her eyes - Corrin thought it was a simple problem of being forced to do things or harming people on accident.

Azura tugs her dress strap back up. “I don’t know. It can be a cruel world. But you understand my point, don’t you? You’re not the only one in the world who can do harm.” She reaches for Corrin’s hand and places it over her heart, folding it back for her. “And you _don’t_ do harm, when you can help it. I think you’re a very kind person, and have probably done more good things for people than you realize.”

Corrin looks hesitantly at their joined hands, so close to her own chest, and draws them in closer. “I don’t know if I get it completely....and I think I’m probably always going to feel bad about my mistakes....But I think I get most of it.”

“It’s fine if you only get most of it.” She assures her. “Just try to remember that you do more good than harm....By my count, you’ve saved my life three times already. I’d happily trust it to you again.”

“I have?!” Bewildered, Corrin drops Azura’s hand. “But that’s crazy! I almost -”

Azura cuts her off, shaking her head. “You protected me from wolves and faceless, offered shelter, and kept me from being brought back to castle shirasagi in chains. And what’s more, you’ve made the family here very happy just with your presence, Corrin. You help people without even thinking about it. Is that not more telling of your character than actions you _almost_ took?”

This quiets the other girl. “I....I never thought about it like that.”

Quietly standing from the bed, Azura offers her hand to Corrin, and when she stands, wraps her arm around her waist affectionately. “If it’s making you feel better, then I’d advise you to try it from now on.”

It earns a small chuckle from the other girl. “Okay,” She says, rubbing the last of her tears away. “I’ll try that.” The feeling when she sees Corrin’s smile creep back onto her face, a shy, nervous thing but still so _Corrin_ , so wholehearted and cloyingly sweet - it sets her chest aflutter.

Azura nods through the feeling. “Come on. We should explain to the others that you’re back, but before that, you need a bath.”

“I do?” Corrin whines. “Oboro said the same thing....I thought I smelled fine!”

She rolls her eyes. “Perhaps you’re too used to it. Come; this time I’ll show you how to use the soap properly.”

* * *

The two objectives seem to be tied to each other; when they get to the baths, Sakura is already there, with Hana standing faithfully on guard outside the door. She greets Azura heartily. “Hey~! If you’re going to take a bath, Lady Sakura is already in there, so would you mind helping her with her back?”

“I would have imagined you’d want to do that for her, too.” Azura points out, amused. “Why not have Subaki stand guard while you keep her company?”

Hana shakes her head almost violently, making an “X” gesture with her arms. “Out of the question! Not even a perfect man is good enough to stand guard outside the women’s bath! Not that that floozy is actually perfect in the first place...” She grumbles, although it’s pretty obvious she wishes she _was_ able to fulfil both tasks at the same time. “Anyway, I’m on guard duty and I’m not budging. So can you two keep her company inside?”

The both of them nod, and Corrin holds her spare clothes to her chest, fidgeting. “Are you sure Hinoka won’t mind?” She whispers, as they’re passing through the entrance.

“The only thing Hinoka will mind is that she was out tonight and couldn’t see you a day earlier.” Azura replies with a short laugh. “She’d be happy to give you spare clothes, believe me.”

The ever-impatient redhead had decided that the only way to pass the time while Corrin was “taken” for the weekend was to go out on patrol and skewer risen until the sun went down, then do it again the next day. If she’d known Corrin would be back a day early, she’d have flown back in an instant.

“If you’re sure.” Corrin turns the spare clothes over in her hands again. It’s probably not a perfect fit, but it’s still a lucky coincidence that they’re about the same height. Besides, Azura has been curious about getting Corrin a change of clothes. Maybe it could help her adjust - something readily available to differentiate now from the days on the mountain.

Sakura is, as promised, already in the bath when Azura and Corrin get there, and she sinks a little lower into the water when she notices others are coming. “Oh, Azura! And...Corrin? You’re back early. I-is everything okay?”

“I’m fine, and Takumi is okay too. I just left early, for....reasons.” Embarrassed, Corrin avoids eye contact and focuses simply on removing her armor, starting with the clasps.  Azura also disrobes, folding her clothes neatly and placing them near the entrance, and joins Sakura.

Ah.... as usual, the water is perfect. She can feel her hair pooling around her, and she twists it out of the way of her eyes, laying it over her shoulder. After a moment, Corrin joins too.

“It’s really warm! How do they get it to do this?” She marvels, sloshing her hands around a bit in the water. Corrin dunks her head under, then comes back up still pleased as can be. There’s something immediately silly about seeing her usually uncontrollable hair plastered against her face like this.

“Well....th-this bath is built on a natural hot spring, but they can be made with magic...it takes a long time to set up, though.” Sakura explains, still crossing and fidgeting with her hands. “Do you...um, have you ever been in a hot spring?”

“Nope!” Corrin replies, popping the ‘p’ sound. “In Nohr they just had bathtubs, and letting anyone else in with you was a big no-no. I remember one time Elise and I -” Corrin turns her head suddenly, clearing her throat. “Well, long story short it ended up more like a splash fight than a bath. And after leaving, I just took baths in the pond.”

Sakura nods thoughtfully. Like all the other siblings (save perhaps Takumi - Azura still doesn’t know precisely what happened on the camping trip or if they spoke on the matter) she seems to feel a bit guilty over Corrin’s time in the wilderness, but _unlike_ her older siblings, she seems intensely curious about it, too - undoubtedly the story-like appeal of living off the lands by oneself stirs her curiosity all the more. “Hey, Corrin.....were you really alone all that time? A-after you left Nohr, I mean...! You just....it feels like you make friends so easily...and I was really impressed.”

“...really?” Corrin’s eyes are sparkling. “You think it’s impressive?” Despite being, ostensibly, the older sibling in this scenario, she looks remarkably as though she’s just been praised by a sibling older than herself.

Sakura nods, just as earnest. “Y-yeah! If I was meeting all these new people in one day....I’d probably be really scared.” She admits. “If I’d been in your place, I p-probably would have just cried and stayed in my room all day...”

Corrin giggles. “I probably _would_ be a lot more nervous, if it weren’t for Azura.” She says shyly. “She’s really calming sometimes, you know? I just can’t feel so worried when she’s with me.”

Azura can feel her face heat up, and is grateful it can at least be played off as the heat of the bath. She sinks a little lower into the water, as Sakura cheerfully agrees.

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean! Azura has always been a really good older sister...she’s really nice, a-and considerate of others...” Sakura twists her fingers nervously, fidgeting. “But I think...we’re embarrassing her...”

“Are we?” Corrin asks, cocking her head. She turns to face Azura. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She sighs. “Tight lips are an unfortunate symptom of embarrassment.” Corrin doesn’t exactly seem to get it, but she nods along anyway, and gestures to the bath soaps and brushes Azura brought in.

“Is it time to use these yet?”

“Use them whenever you want. I’d like to soak a little longer, if that’s alright with you...” Letting the statement trail off, Azura looks to Sakura. “Although, Hana said you might need help. Do you, Sakura?”

The other girl shakes her head vehemently. “O-of course not…..I’m not that little anymore…!”

Azura giggles. “If you say so~” She says, in a teasing lilt. “If you change your mind, I’m already going to be helping Corrin wash up.”

“...Thanks.” Sakura says, voice so quiet so as to barely be heard. Azura laughs again, and Corrin, not to be outdone, grins at the both of them.

“This is nice! Everyone should take baths together! Hinoka isn’t here, but maybe we could ask Ryoma…?” She brings a hand to her chin, and Azura and Sakura both flinch.

“That’s….sweet, but a poor idea.” Azura advises.

Although, she’s not sure Ryoma would even have it in him to say no if Corrin asked…..which is why it’s all the more important that Azura prevent her from doing so. With a soft chuckle, more to herself than anything, she shakes her head.

It’s good to see her in high spirits again.

* * *

After the bath, during which there was no shortage of times which Azura had to remind Corrin to sit more still, they all emerged from the changing rooms, toweled off and clean. Azura worked through each of the messy knots in Corrin’s hair, and did her novel best to get her clean and ‘smelling less like Nohr’. She’s not sure _how_ exactly Corrin came to understand that being a problem (and even less so what the whole of the country apparently smelled like) but now Corrin smells like floral arrangements, and she’s rather pleased about it.

She exits the bathhouse in Hinoka’s clothes, tugging at the long sleeves and looking sheepishly at Azura. She’s still barefoot - Azura couldn’t really fault her there, having similar preferences - but seeing her out of her normal clothes is novel. Hinoka usually just wears her pegasus knight’s gear, but luckily she had some casual clothing.

Corrin shuffles around a little, unused to the baggy shorts and robe of her clothing. The undershirt is white, and the overcoat, tied on with a brown patterned sash, is the same red that Hinoka enjoys wearing about. Corrin pulls at that too. “Does it really look okay? It’s supposed to be this loose, right?”

She hums in agreement. “If you’re really concerned about the sleeves, I can get a cord for you to tie them up with.”

“Like a rope?!” Corrin exclaims, shocked. “There’s no way that’s comfortable!”

With a mirthful laugh, Azura shakes her head. “No, not that type of cord. It’s a sash called a tasuki cord - I could tie it up so that your shirt doesn’t get caught on anything. People usually wear them if they don’t want to get their clothes dirty, but they’re going to be doing work.”

Corrin scratches at her head. “O-oh. That sounds a lot more comfortable than what I was imagining….umm, I should be fine like this!” She gives the sash one last, resolute tug. She really does look adorable in these clothes….Azura banishes the thought. “So, I guess it would be too much to ask for dinner this late, right…?”

“Not at all. You _are_ considered royalty here, you know. It wouldn’t be hard at all to have someone wake the chefs to make you something to eat.”

Corrin shakes her head vehemently. “I don’t want to wake anyone up! I can just eat more at breakfast…”

While part of her would rather Corrin eat than go hungry, she’s still pleased to see how considerate the other girl is. Royalty or not, having people wake up on a whim for you has always seemed a little selfish to her…. So Azura nods her consent. “If you’re really hungry, I can show you to the kitchen and you can simply eat something that doesn’t need to be prepared first.” She offers instead. Surely there are pastries or dried foods that don’t need to be cooked anymore?

“Hmm…..” Corrin thinks it over, and may have done so for longer, had her train of thought not been interrupted by an unearthly growl.

Corrin flushes pink, right up to her ears.

“I suppose your stomach answered for you. Follow me,” Azura says wryly, biting back her grin. She doesn’t do it very effectively, because Corrin pouts, but follows along.

On the way there, though, they run across Ryoma and Mikoto, who spot them in return and begin making their way towards them much faster.

“Ah, there you are. Sakura told us you had returned early. Welcome back, Corrin.” Ryoma is cordial, dipping his head to both girls. Corrin mimics the gesture.

Wringing her hands together, Mikoto looks to Corrin. “How are you, dear?”

“Pretty good.” She replies nonchalantly, running a hand through her hair. “I just took a bath, and Azura was taking me to the kitchen for something to eat.”

“Do you want me to wake the chefs?” Mikoto asks, drawing the same conclusion as Azura had earlier. Once more, Corrin shakes her head, citing her reluctance to bother anyone. A warm smile crosses Mikoto’s face. “I see….in that case, will you allow me to make something for you? A mother making a meal for her child….it seems fitting, doesn’t it?”

It’s hard to tell from the way Mikoto says it so casually, almost mirthfully, but Azura knows this is something she’s probably wanted to do for a long, long time. Just the normal, everyday kind of thing…..even as a queen, she must have truly regretted not being able to have any of those sorts of moments with her daughter.

Corrin mulls it over. “....If you want to make something, I’d be happy….” She says at long last. “If you’re really okay with doing that at this hour..”

“Wonderful…” Mikoto sighs blissfully, then claps her hands together by her head, suddenly alert. “It’s been a long time, but I know how to cook yet! Come, let’s talk while I get the food ready.” She stretches a hand out, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Corrin takes it.

“Go ahead without me.” Azura excuses herself preemptively, and where Corrin is usually unsure, she now simply nods. Mikoto is far from threatening after all, and the conversation with Sakura, in addition to the warm bath and ceaseless reassurances from Azura, seem to have bolstered her spirit. “I’m going to speak with Ryoma and then return to my room. You still recall the way, right?”

Corrin nods. “I’ll see you later.”

Mother and daughter hurry down the hallway, Corrin’s sash-bow bobbing up and down as she hurries after the older woman. Azura shakes her head in amusement, then looks to Ryoma, who has been rather quiet.

He looks rather amused himself, although he sobers up when he looks to Azura once more. “So, Azura….would you happen to know why she’s returned without Takumi?”

She sighs, shaking her head in the negative, before urging Ryoma to walk down the hall with her. She looks to the hallways, ornate and repetitive, as she explains what little she does know. “I don’t know what started it, but I know why she came back on her own. I worry about her…”

“How so?” Ryoma’s voice is grave; whether the occasion had been serious or silly, he probably would have approached it the same way. Knowing Azura has worries, however, seems to set him on edge. She can’t blame him, either - who wants to be told there are complications with their family?

Azura looks to the floor, pausing in her steps. “I just can’t help but think…...perhaps she lost more to those ten years than any of us believed. It’s very easy to forget that she had to endure that on her own, and I worry.”

“If you’ve reason to worry, then I am troubled as well. Please, tell me what happened.” He implores.

She sighs. “She was anxious about her dragonstone, and her ability to behave normally. She never directly confirmed it, but I’m willing to wager she was worried about her position in your family, as well. It’s no fault of anyone else’s, but Corrin just can’t seem to accept that people enjoy her company.”

Frowning, Ryoma looks as if he has half a mind to return to the kitchen and address it directly, so Azura stops him by the arm, giving him pause. “I think we should give them time.” She explains quietly. “Mikoto looked happy, and Corrin is in a good mood….this could be good for them.”

“I suppose you’re right…” Albeit a bit reluctantly, Ryoma turns away from the kitchen hall once more, and faces Azura, still looking vexed. “Even still, the thought pains me. Is there nothing more we could do to make her feel welcome?”

“Aside from treating her gently, nothing that comes to mind.” The two of them cross the foyer and exit into the garden, where the cool air lets Azura know the heat of summer is fading, fast. She appreciates the stars, as long as she’s out. Do they look down on her, from all the way up there? Perhaps a fourth kingdom, not under, but over, the two dominant ones, lies in wait…..

For now, it’s enough to know that the stars are nice and the air is crisp. Her thoughts return to the conversation at hand. “She’s….sensitive, but I believe that’s not strictly a bad thing. If someone else is in a good mood, Corrin is quick to pick up on it….however, likewise, if someone is anxious….”

“Corrin becomes anxious as well.” Ryoma concludes for her, gleaning her point. “I see...so, your suggestion would be to continue as though things were normal, to avoid further stress. Am I correct?”

“Yes.” The firm confirmation comes at last, and even Ryoma seems to take comfort in its release. “A full blown excursion with Takumi and his retainers was probably too much to hope of her right now, regardless of whether she volunteered herself. For now, we should try to keep things limited to the castle and the shopping district, where she can easily get back to her room should things get crowded.”

The prince nods. “I think you’ve got the right idea.” The two walk in silence, coming to a stop by the sakura trees in the royal garden when Ryoma lays his head and back against one with a heavy sigh. “To think after all these years, I am finally able to have such a sweet problem...even distressed, knowing Corrin is at home with us fills me with strength. I know I’ve said it before, but we have you to thank for this reunion.”

He casts a look in her direction, steadfast and grateful. “Are you certain there's nothing you wish us to do? No boon I could grant you?”

She shakes her head, taking place beside the tree. “As _I’ve_ told you, I’m happy just being here.” Azura looks to the ground with a shy smile. “...in all honesty, I always thought you all must have disliked me, because I took Corrin’s place. I thought we were all just too mutually polite to say it. So to have brought her back, and learned with certainty that your family has room enough for me, too, makes me incredibly happy. Having this....is enough for me.”

“Easy to please, as ever.” Ryoma laughs, shaking his head as he parts from the tree. “I should be resting. I will see you in the morning - good night, Azura.”

“Good night.” She returns the parting words, but stays where she is, intent to sit and appreciate the night a little more. Ryoma sunders off, and she’s left to appreciate the crickets.

The night is cool. Not far, she can see the path to the lake she likes to visit, a perfect roadmap in her mind. If she loses focus, it almost seems to shine, beckoning ever-forward. Is there anything she wants? She’s never considered it. Of course she can easily be content with her life as it is now, but...

...Corrin should be busy for some time yet, and Sakura is already off to bed....

Azura brings her hand to her chest, wrapping a few fingers gently around her pendant.

Just a quick visit, and no one could fault her. She sets off for the lake with that in mind. Be careful, avoid the soldiers, use the water to travel...it’s been a while, so she merely feels obligated to check in on the underground nation.  

A quick visit - that’s all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure at least one of u had ur mind in the gutter w the hot springs, but it's just a communal bath lmfao. Sakura is there ok! they're all gays but they're all girls first n foremost so it's nbd. Idk why fates made the hot springs so weird (it wasn't....quite as useful as any of the other communal 'flavor text' buildings like the mess hall/arena) or needed it at all, but, hey. Small nod to that I Guess. Medicinal baths r just. Nice, and sometimes?? it b like that
> 
> This chapter is a bit shorter than the last, but after cooling down from the events of chapter 9, with this as a buffer, I'm going to move into the free time event aka family bonding simulator! Mikoto is first up and will make intermittent appearances while Corrin gets to know the fam better. Sorry nothing super interesting happens here; it's really just a like...trasnsitional chapter so that i didnt drop kick us from angst to fluff lmao
> 
> In the meantime, Azura hasn't Completely forgotten her a̶n̶g̶s̶t̶ responsibilities with Valla. ;')


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally graduated! I should have boatloads more free time now, but I can't promise it'll all be devoted to writing, lmao. This chapter was a bit delayed, but still pretty timely, all things considered. I love the taste of catharsis with your long lost family in the morning. 
> 
> Also, I just want to warn everyone up front to be ready for a monster of an author's note at the end of this chapter. I've gone through and made a thorough timeline of events leading up to the fic, based as much around my understanding of the canon timeline as possible. It also includes the exact ages I will be using for each character, if anyone cares ab those lol. If you read chapter notes but get to the bottom and think "oh hell no", just rest assured that that's all more or less flavor details. I won't spoil anything that's supposed to be a big reveal, and you don't *have* to read the notes at the end for a Crucial Understanding Of The Fic. 
> 
> All you need to know are these two things: 1. Mikoto and Arete aren't sisters bc No Thanks Incest And Lazy Lore Made Up To Put A Crown On Corrin  
> 2\. Sakura and Elise are both underage. There is absolutely no way around this, and it fits better narratively and chronologically. fates handwaved away the fact that Elise can't have been older than 10 due to dialog (azura's support with Elise stating that Elise was born after her kidnapping, and another support with Arthur stating she'd been gone for 10 years, although in the english version they edited the line to say "more than a decade ago") but I won't. In this fic she's a bit older than in canon, because Azura has been in Hoshido longer (15 years) but she's still very young, and Sakura isn't much older at 17.

It’s not very bright in the kitchens. Corrin doesn’t have a hard time seeing, but she can tell Mikoto does when she stares, extra close, into the cabinets - nearly reaches for the wrong place when she goes to retrieve things. This further confirms her suspicions that Mikoto isn’t secretly a dragon like herself - not that she hadn’t figured that one out by now.

She’d offer to help, but she’s not really sure what Mikoto is intending to grab.....and what’s more, unsure how to offer....

So Corrin bites her lip as the silence drags on, longer and longer, between the two of them.

What does she say? What  _ can _ she say? This is just like that night in her room. 

Corrin’s never had a parent, not really. Garon, sure, but he was never around, and failing that, hated her, and failing that, was technically an adoptive father (kidnapper?). It’s not to say that all on its own means she’s “never” had a parent, but combined with the fact that it was a near-decade ago? 

She doesn’t know a thing. How respectful is too much, how polite a distance, whether she should be friendly with her....she has no idea. It makes her gut twist. “Umm.....Mikoto?”

“Yes, dear?” Ah, still not the commanding presence she can’t help but expect....Corrin scratches at her cheek. 

“If you like, I can go look for some candles to light...” She trails off. “Since it’s dark...”

Mikoto nods, looking pleased as usual. “That would be lovely. Do you know where they are? We keep some in the other room.” Mikoto gestures to a door leading to what Corrin can only assume is a larder of sorts, and she enters and finds a few candles sitting on the shelf. There’s plenty of foods stocked up in the back, too - some that she recognizes, others that she doesn’t. Bamboo and mushrooms - that all grew near her cave. Rice she also recognizes. But the purple things and the too-long white vegetables that clearly  _ aren’t _ mushrooms pique her curiosity. 

No time for that, though; she needs to focus on the task at hand. 

She takes up two of the larger candles and balances them in her hands, summoning up her internal flame - a soft exhale, and bright, crystalline blue fire catches on the wicks. Corrin takes another deep breath, relieved she didn’t overshoot and burn the pantry down, and sets the two candles on the table where Mikoto has set to work. She recognizes most of the stuff on the counter from Nohr - flour, pots, oil. No actual food yet, though...

“Thank you, dear. I can see much better now - these old eyes must be going out on me. I used to be able to navigate a kitchen like my own bedroom...” She trails off with a soft laugh, shaking her head. “Times have changed, haven’t they?”

“I thought nobility usually didn’t cook their own meals?” Corrin says, more of a question than a statement about something she thought. Too late she realizes her error - questioning your parents is bad. That much she does remember, the first thing Xander or  _ anyone _ had taught her. 

She half expects Mikoto to order her out of the room, half expects herself to cower and run out all on her own anyway, but what she didn’t expect in the slightest was for Mikoto to smile and stifle a laugh. “I’m s-sorry...?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” The older woman reassures her, looking rather amused. “It just occurred to me that you might be just as confused about my past as I am yours. I married into this life. Sumeragi was the born royalty - not me. Believe it or not, I was once a working woman.”

“You can  _ do _ that?!” Corrin exclaims. It’s a bit loud, and she sheepishly corrects her own volume lest she wake someone else up, voice dropping to a whisper. “You can do that?” She repeats, quietly. “Marry into nobility, I mean. I thought this was just like Nohr, and you had all of your kids with different men who didn’t live in the palace.” She muses aloud. “You know, the, uhh...” There was a more polite word for them that Xander used to use... what was it? 

Corrin snaps her fingers as it comes to her. “The porcupines! They have your kids and don’t live in the castle.” She wonders if her dad is one of those. Did he ever wonder what happened to her? Then again, Camilla and Leo’s porcupines never really saw them again. She assumes the same thing happened with Elise, although she never asked about it. 

Once again, this has far from the intended or expected result on the Queen; Mikoto bursts into laughter so hard she practically has to hold the table for support. She can tell that Mikoto is trying to hold it, too - covering her mouth with a hand pressed so tight against it it’s a wonder she can breathe. Corrin feels her face grow red with embarrassment. 

It’s pretty possible she picked the wrong word....

After a moment to recover, Mikoto wipes her eyes and addresses Corrin again. “I think...the word you were searching for was - concubines. The concubines have Garon’s children and don’t live in the castle.”

“R-i-i-ight,” Corrin draws out the word, still embarrassed. “I meant that. But you don’t have those in Hoshido, right? ‘Cause otherwise you wouldn’t live here, right?” Do the concubines replace the royalty? Corrin is still immeasurably confused. Although she’s pretty sure Sumeragi is dead, so it’s possible they do less than replace and more of cohabitate with them.

“Some noble houses do, others don’t.” Mikoto replies, now in a level voice. She gently lays out the ingredients while she speaks, Corrin following her into the pantry as she pulls both the mystery and familiar vegetables out with her and lays them on the counter, still speaking. “Sumeragi was uninclined to have concubines. I was his second wife, but we did not marry until Queen Ikona passed away in childbirth with Takumi.”

“Aren’t I older than Takumi?” Corrin interrupts, now feeling more bold. Mikoto has yet to punish her for asking questions, and her curiosity burns too brightly to be ignored. “Am I younger?” 

Corrin has, for the most part, accepted that she is Mikoto’s daughter, and everyone else’s missing sister. What else could explain the sincerity with which everyone (even Takumi, who’s confirmation had frankly really cemented it) insists she is the same Corrin that they lost? But if she starts finding discrepancies in their ages now.....she thinks it would be too bitter a pill to swallow, finding out that all of them, Azura included, simply guessed wrong. 

Luckily, Mikoto shakes her head once more. She goes to start a fire (rather inefficiently, Corrin thinks, as opposed to just asking Corrin to light it for her) inside the stove as the replies. “You are older, but Sumeragi is not your father. I already had you when I moved to the country and began working as a diviner in the royal house. Shortly after Ikona’s death, Sumeragi began courting me, and some years after, we had Sakura.”

_ Courting _ . Another familiar word, although she’s less sure what to make of it. Usually the porcu - concubines, Corrin corrects - did all the courting, so this is another instance of different traditions, it seems. Still, if Sumeragi had less to gain, it’s surprising he’d be the one to expend the effort. “If it wasn’t Sumeragi, who  _ was _ my father? Was he a concubine? What do you do to court someone? Does it mean you’re in love?”

A million more questions are racing through her mind. Something is nagging at her, like she’s forgotten an important detail. It can’t be that far out of reach, but then she’s lost it again to the storm of other questions. 

While initially looking overwhelmed, after the last round of questions Mikoto smiles again, a wry expression crossing her face. “My, my. I thought you wanted to eat sometime this week, Corrin. Aren’t you hungry anymore?”

Corrin blinks. “W-well.....yeah!” The cavernous feeling in her stomach confirms it - she’s still starving. But still.... “Aren’t you going to answer the questions?” She whines. 

“I’ll tell you about courtship later. I’m going out to the well to get water for now, and I need you and your eyes undistracted.” That being said, Mikoto quickly strides out the door, and a much put-out Corrin hurries after her. 

Why does she get this feeling that she dodged the other questions...? Well, all of them, really, but still. She’d have thought the questions about her father, at the very least, would go answered. 

It doesn’t seem to be the case. She helps Mikoto fill two of the pots with cold water and return to the kitchen with them. Having been reminded of her appetite makes her a bit impatient for the food she knows is coming soon, so she watches with muted interest as Mikoto puts one of the pots on the stove and begins making the rice in that one. The third pot, the one they hadn’t gotten water for,  gets oil in it, and she puts that on the stove, too. 

After some time the oil pot is sizzling dramatically, and Mikoto dumps the flour in the cold water and stirs a bit. 

One by one, the vegetables get dipped and fried. Corrin can sheepishly admit to having stolen a fair few of the mushrooms beforehand, since she already knew she could eat them plain, but they certainly smelled a lot better after whatever Mikoto did to them. She piles the rice onto a plate, then lays out most of the once-vegetables on top of that. She sets it on the counter.

“...Done!” Mikoto announces, proudly. “I think we’ve both already eaten a few, so we can forgo sitting at the table for now. Do you like it, Corrin?”

Uncaring about the temperature, Corrin pops one of the Fried Things into her mouth and eagerly bounces back and forth on her feet. She nods eagerly and has another, before coming back for the rice. “Yes!! What is it?”

“Tempura. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, sweetheart.” Corrin just nods again and tries to focus on eating as quickly as she can without inhaling it.

Hungry as she might be, she catches herself about halfway through the plate and shoves it back in Mikoto’s direction, embarrassed. “You made it, so you should also be eating it.”

“I already had dinner, so don’t worry about me.” She waves it off, then covers a yawn with her hand. “I shouldn’t be eating before bed, anyway. It’s not good for my divination schedule.”

Corrin frowns. “Just a few?”

“Oh, fine. If you’re really twisting my arm, I guess I could break my schedule~” Not looking terribly reluctant herself, Mikoto also helps herself to the tempura. Between the two of them the plate doesn’t last long, and Corrin could definitely eat more - but she’ll be content until breakfast, which was the entire point of this excursion. 

Once they clear it off, Corrin shoots a toothy grin Mikoto’s direction. “Thanks, Mikoto. It was really good. Sorry for keeping you up with me.”

“..It’s no problem at all. Really, I’d do this any time for you....” Mikoto starts moving to clean up after them, but....Corrin feels her spirits sink as she realizes the older woman is sad, now. Why? Has she said something? Done something? Maybe it was her teeth....or maybe she wants to have stayed up longer. She looked....resigned, sort of. Defeated. 

Corrin chews on her lip, again at a loss for words, so she tentatively reaches out. “Umm....are you...okay?”

“Hm? Oh, I’m fine!” Mikoto hurriedly assures her, waving her hands as soon as she’s set the pots by the door to be washed in the morning. “I’m fine, Corrin. It’s kind of you to ask.”

She frowns again. “You just...seem kind of sad,” Corrin offers by way of explanation, scratching at her cheek. “I was worried, is all...”

Mikoto is quiet for a moment. She wrings the sleeves of her nightgown in her hands. Pensive, that’s the word. Hesitant, a little sad. She faces Corrin, looking apologetic. “I.....suppose I hoped you would call me mother. I understand if you aren’t comfortable with it; so I thought I ought give it more time...”

Her heart clenches at the wistful voice. Corrin has always hated seeing others sad. It’s worse than being sad herself, in her eyes. When other people are sad, she can only see all the reasons they don’t deserve to be - and only feel the weight of her own failure to help them sooner. 

Determined to act, now, Corrin straightens her shoulders and resolves not to let her be sad. Not over something so simple Corrin had failed to even consider it. Not over a problem she isn’t sure they have anymore. 

“Is that all?” Corrin replies breezily. “I don’t mind calling you something different if it makes you happy - I can call you mother if you want.” She offers. 

“You wouldn’t mind?” Mikoto asks in response, sounding hopeful. “Why the sudden change of heart? ...Do you... do you remember anything?” Even judging by the way she asked the last question Corrin can tell her hopes aren’t  _ that _ high, so she’s not going to try and pull the wool over her, but she’s capable of giving an honest response. 

“No, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t remember you, or anyone else....but I don’t think I have to.” She says, softly but firmly, and meets Mikoto’s - her mother’s -  eyes. “I trust everyone, and I don’t think any of you would say you’re my family if you aren’t, at least not on purpose.” 

There’s irony to be had - someone who had already been deceived into taking on others as her family, another set of four siblings and a father-who-wasn’t-a-father having swindled their way into her family tree without her notice, but -

But -

At the time, they  _ were _ family. And that was enough. So this time, too, whether Corrin is Long Lost Corrin or Just Corrin, she can be their family. And it’ll be enough again, right?

“So I’ve decided I believe you, even if I can’t remember a thing.” She concludes, shooting her mother a bashful smile. “I’m only sorry I forgot.”

Mikoto starts to cry, and Corrin feels anxiety slam into her gut like a battering ram. Did she say the wrong thing? Is she disappointed? What can she -

Two arms wrap around her and Corrin realizes she’s being pulled into another hug. Mikoto seems small, and ungraceful, and uncomposed, and  _ frail _ in her arms, far from the serene Queen she’d seen at the dinner table or overheard talking in public. 

Corrin secures her grip on her, near tears herself, but Mikoto can’t see as much. “I’m sorry,” She says, feeling her eyes prick. “I thought that was the right thing to say - I didn’t  - I didn’t mean to make you cry...”

“Corrin, I’m  _ happy _ . You’ve made me....” A long, un-graceful sniffle, “So happy....I couldn’t stop myself from crying....” Another sniffle. “I must look like a fool to you...”

“No, I - I’m happy too! And I think you look lovely, you know!” Hurrying, as if she’s somehow going to lose the ability to speak soon, Corrin rambles, brushing aside some of the hair that sticks to Mikoto’s cheeks with tears. “Your face is a little red, but that’s okay. I think....I think that crying because you’re happy is beautiful!” She gushes. “Because it means you’re as far from being sad as it gets - feeling so much happy that it’s bursting.”

Mikoto laughs and tries to dry her eyes, rather ineffectively. Corrin nuzzles her head against Mikoto’s, trying her level best to keep from hugging too hard. “It makes me realize how much you must care about me,” She continues, “And how much I want to return that love. So I’ll call you mother as many times as you want, okay?”

That sets both of them off again, but Corrin’s heart is unbelievably light right now. She doesn’t even care if they look stupid doing it, crying at gods-know-when in the morning because the other one started crying and now they can’t stop. Maybe this is something she gets from her - maybe it’s just _ right _ that they share the same sensitivity. 

In either case, knowing she is this loved by her family is a rare experience for Corrin, and one she’s sorely needed for a long time. She still has questions, but for now she can take emotions. There are still doubts that plague her, Garon’s words especially - the thought that she was not born out of love (because if Mikoto loved Corrin’s father, why didn’t she stay with him? a doubtful, hurtful voice asks in her mind.) but to be a weapon still scares her half to death, but the sincerity overturns that doubt, at least this time. Whatever the circumstances of her birth were, she is loved now, and she is home now. 

And that’s good enough to happy-cry over. 

After much sniffling and a period of sheepish, repetitive apologies - “Sorry for crying all over you” being chief among them - they part ways, both feeling drained but contented. “Good night, Corrin.”

“Good night, Mother.” Corrin echoes, feeling a thrill shoot up her back. Mother - she has a mother. And siblings! She has a mother and siblings! Her heart beats triple-time. It’s been so long....

All those years, she’d.......she’d felt so disconnected. Her only family had turned out to be both adoptive and impermanent, leaving her with only the knowledge that she had to have come from  _ somewhere _ , somehow. She’d spent so long picturing faceless men and women: were any her father? Her mother? Did they miss her? Have they forgotten her? Did they think her to be dead?

Sometimes she wondered if they’d come to the same realization as Garon and abandoned her. Knowing none of that was true - that Mikoto has a name and face, and that she’s missed her, and loves her.... Corrin could just melt.

Corrin grins to herself all the way down the hall, then back into Azura’s room. She finds the other girl is already asleep - no surprise, really. She spent a little longer in the dining hall than she’d expected. 

It’s after Corrin starts changing into a proper nightgown (assuming that Azura would not be appreciative of spending the night next to someone whose bedwear had been a makeshift handkerchief for royal snot) and preparing to lay down that she catches  _ it _ . 

Her nose had been somewhat stuffed from crying, and she wasn’t really actively checking, but this close to Azura there’s no mistaking it. That familiar, ominous,  _ wrong smell, how did it get here, to  _ **_her home_ ** _ - _

Before Corrin can really process the thought or stop herself, she’s clamoring into the bed and practically wrapping herself around her, feeling uncharacteristic resistance in her back, a delay,  _ out, damn it,  _

Her nightgown grows too thin and rips at the back, giving her the breathing space she needs to unfurl her wings. She curls one around Azura, folding the other neatly against her own back, and lays her head down next to Azura’s own, hoping that as the night progressed she’d start to smell less like that and more like......

“Corrin?” 

Ah, she woke up. Not the greatest or brightest of plans. Did she have a plan? When did she do this? Why? Corrin feels like someone just threw a bucket of cold water over head. 

Azura has a moment to consider her surroundings, only half-awake. “.....Is there a reason for this?” She asks blearily, clearly unamused at having been woken up. 

“Umm.....ah.....w-well....” Mortification sets in. Corrin feels like she’s a roaring furnace, and every single degree of heat she makes is sourced in pure embarrassment. 

She mumbles the only half-coherent answer she has. 

Unimpressed and still groggy, Azura levels her eyes at her, deadpan. “You’ll have to repeat that.”

“...smelled bad.” Corrin mutters sulkily. “I thought you smelled funny and this happened. I’m sorry....I can sleep on the floor.....”

“Corrin...” Azura sighs, like the unenthused owner of a wyvern that’s just so happened to leave a mess on the rug, “I won’t make you leave, just keep your wings to yourself, okay?” Her statement is interrupted by a loud, prolonged yawn. “I’m very tired, so I’d appreciate getting as much sleep as I can.”

“O-of course.” Corrin whispers back, still utterly mortified of her own thoughtless actions, and slowly unwraps Azura, now neatly folding both of her wings behind her. She opts to keep them there - in part because she’s used to them and in part as a means of covering her back, another thing to add to the list of embarrassing screw ups she’d recently committed. How was she going to explain what happened to her outfit...? Maybe she should go back to sleeping in armor....

In any case, she’s too tired to stay up  _ all _ night thinking about it, and Azura didn’t waste so much as a second in passing out again, so she shouldn’t either. 

Still, that  _ infuriating _ smell..... Corrin’s nose twitches, but she catches herself in the act and quietly shames whichever not-so-civil part of herself is agitating about it. The scent will probably wear off on its own, anyway - no need for Corrin to hasten things if she’s bothering Azura to do it. 

She needs to tone it down, she thinks with a wince. Since she has her dragonstone, she should be able to suppress those feelings now - She picks out  _ Azura’s _ scent through the muddled, Bad one, and that does better to soothe her. 

* * *

Azura awakes, entirely unsurprised, to the sight of grey scaled wings encompassing her. Corrin is still blissfully asleep, looking as if she’s deep in a dream about a field of kittens, so Azura highly doubts Corrin did this on purpose.

She can’t help but let out a breath of laughter, short and amused. This poor girl...shaking her head, Azura thinks back to the night prior, when she’d just opened her eyes. Corrin looked different - almost like she had that day in the cove. Only rather than snarling or glaring at her, Corrin and those razor-thin pupils of hers were focused entirely on pulling Azura closer, protective. 

What had she said? That Azura smelled bad?

It’s certainly possible that Corrin detected that Azura had gone to Valla, something she’d never thought possible until this point. Is Corrin’s sense of smell truly so acute she can detect magic? It would explain a lot...

Whatever it was, Azura has few doubts it’s related to her trip to Valla. Whether Corrin smelled the magic, or the soldiers, or merely a change from her usual aroma, it clearly threw her off in a major way. 

Azura resolves to be more careful, and plan her visits accordingly with this new information. She can’t forsake the country entirely, not yet, as much as she’d like. Her conscience won’t allow it. 

In either case, at least she’s learned something from the venture, and Corrin didn’t wake her up a second time. She can be deceptively subtle about her movements, can’t she? 

There are worse things to wake up to though, all in all. 

Fortunately for Azura, Corrin’s grip isn’t as deathly firm as it’d been last time she’d awoken to this position, so she gently pries herself free, ignoring the murmering complaints of the still-sleeping girl, and gets out of bed to comb her hair. After a few minutes have passed, Corrin wakes as well with a wide yawn. 

“H’g mornin’...” She greets, barely heard through the slow yawn. Corrin blinks a few times before turning attentive eyes on Azura. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yes, I slept fine. I take it you did as well?” 

Corrin nods. “Did you want help brushing your hair?”

Azura shakes her head with a wry smile. “As many times as you ask, I still know how to comb my own hair, Corrin. You should look after your own hygiene first. Do you have a comb?”

“Should I?” Corrin asks, head cocked. “I thought I’d just use yours when you finished.”

She hums. “I suppose you could. Still, we should really see about getting you more personal items sometime. We can’t share a room forever, and I’m sure you’d like some clothes of your own.”

“Huh?! We can’t? Why not?” Corrin whines. “I like sharing a room....”

“And I like having full use of my limbs when I wake up,” Azura teases in a lilting voice, flicking the hair she’d just finished brushing in Corrin’s direction. 

That seems to get a sheepish laugh out of her. “Oh, fiiine...Still, don’t be a stranger! Can we at least have sleepovers?”

“As many as you want, Corrin.” She assures her, tugging the comb through another section of hair. Her bedhead isn’t as bad as usual today....although she supposes it’d be harder to toss and turn as much as she usually does with Corrin attached. Maybe she has her merits after all....

Amused by the thought herself, Azura wraps things up and hands the comb over to Corrin, who goes much faster - both out of a lack of care for tugging, and a hasty job. “Are you sure  _ you _ don’t need help combing your hair? You’ve missed a few spots.”

Corrin waves her off. “It’s fine! It’s a, umm.....windswept, look. Ryoma’s hair is way more spiked anyway, so that means I’m fine, right?”

She giggles. “If you think that, I can’t stop you. I suppose we should just be thankful our hair is more manageable than Ryoma’s.” Azura agrees. It’s fitting for him, but Azura can’t imagine how on earth he gets comfortable...well, anywhere, with his hair that puffed up and spiky. Then again, she’s seen him with his hair wet before, and it was like walking into an alternate dimension where his hair was straight. Highly unnerving.  

Azura gets her dress ready, only to note that Corrin seems to be lingering around the dresser. Ah, right... “I don’t suppose you’re going to do something about these, are you?” Azura asks, walking up beside Corrin to playfully tap one of her wings. 

Corrin squeaks, face red. “It’s just that, umm.... I forgot they were there. I mean, not like, forgot I had them, forgot they were there, it’s more like...”

“You’re used to it. I can understand that much.” Azura guesses, earning a relieved look from Corrin. “I’m sure nobody would mind, aside from strange looks.” She offers. 

“I appreciate the feeling, but I’d definitely prefer to get changed.” Corrin says firmly, and retrieves the borrowed outfit from the day before where she’d left it on her side of the bed - her side of  _ Azura’s _ bed. Gods, they really do have to move Corrin back into her own room before she gets too used to this...spoiled girl. 

They both get changed and leave for breakfast.

Or, at least they thought they’d left for breakfast, but when they walk into the hall, the table isn’t set. Strange....usually they didn’t wake up that late, and someone would have come to wake them besides....and they’re definitely not up too early, either...

“Ah, perfect timing. I was just on my way to rouse the two of you; Hinoka is getting impatient.” Strolling into the room from the hallway they themselves had just used, Ryoma approaches the duo. Azura notes that he’s not in his usual princely getup - he’s in more casual clothes, headpiece removed and Raijinto presumably stashed away somewhere else. “Good morning to you both.”

“Good morning!” Corrin chirrups, Azura promptly echoing the statement as well. “Did Hinoka just get back?” Corrin asks, glancing out to the hall like the redhead is liable to manifest in much the same way Ryoma had.

She doesn’t, though. Ryoma nods. “She got back from patrol pretty early in the morning, but fortunately I was awake to intercept her. I sent her off to prepare some more fitting attire for the day.” 

Azura raises an eyebrow. “Is there something going on today I was unaware of?”

“Yes, actually.” Ryoma confirms, and it’s now that he folds his arms and closes his eyes, looking rather pleased with himself. “I took our conversation last night to heart and decided to arrange a festival in the main square today. I thought it would be a good venue through which to pursue family time. I also pushed Mother and I’s meetings for today off to the next week so that we might attend as well. “

“Y-you’re joking!” Just the thought of it causes Azura to pale. 

She’s certain his intentions were good, but she can only imagine how all the vendors must have felt, seeing the high prince on their doorstep at the crack of dawn requesting a festival to be held that same day. She’s certain one or more must have fainted as soon as they closed the door. 

He can’t seriously have rescheduled any war councils or trade meets, either, could he....? Yukimura would be furious, as would any visiting dignitary. And only the gods know what kind of political mess they’d be in if anyone from another nation happened to be visiting....this can’t be happening.

“Far from it.” Ryoma claps a hand onto both her shoulder and Corrin’s, who for her part looks notably more interested and less horrified than her blue-haired companion. Sensing her trepidation, Ryoma smirks. "Peace, Azura. I didn't charge into the market insisting on a parade. I  only asked that the normal peddlers and marketplaces put up some decorations. I offered compensation and my own assistance in doing so. Yukimura is also more than capable of filling in for mother and I today."  
  
Azura lets out a sigh of relief. Was he just messing with her, then? She's not sure how much she likes this more devious Ryoma - but it's nice to see him relaxing enough to try it. And, now that she's a bit less anxious about the whole thing, a festival really does sound like it could be good fun.  


Satisfied that he has reassured Azura, Ryoma presses on. “We’re all going to meet outside in the garden when we’ve gotten dressed. Corrin, if you’d follow me to your old quarters, Mother prepared a dress for you some years back in the event you returned - with luck, it should fit you relatively well in spite of the guesswork involved in its measurements.” 

“She did?” Corrin marvels, evidently catching wind of Ryoma’s excitement. “Oh, I hope it fits...Is it a pretty dress like Azura’s?” She asks, causing Azura to blush, just a little. 

Ryoma smiles in return. “The designs are somewhat different in style, but I’m sure you’ll find it to be pretty regardless. Mother has an eye for these sorts of things.”

“Let’s see it, then!” Eager, Corrin takes Ryoma by the hand and makes as if to tug him to her room by force - not that there’s much resistance from the prince... Corrin beams over at Azura. “You should go meet up with the others, since you’re already dressed properly. I won’t keep you waiting long -” Corrin’s eyes widen, pausing her mid-sentence as something obviously drastic occurs to her. “...wait, uh, Ryoma? Is there going to be one of these sashes...?" She pulls at the one she's wearing now in demonstration. "Can you help me tie it if there is?”

“Of course.”

Corrin relaxes. “Alright, then! This will be a breeze! See you in a bit, Azura!”

The two are off, then, absconding from the room faster than an arrow flies from the bow. Azura shakes her head and makes her way outside to greet the others, where both Mikoto and Hinoka respond with eager greetings of their own, alongside a bit more subdued one from Sakura. 

She hasn’t seen Mikoto looking this rosy and enthusiastic since - well, ever, if she’s to be frank. Perhaps when Sakura learned to speak in full sentences? The Queen must have gained more solace from her time last night than she’d expected. Azura is happy to see her enjoying herself so thoroughly. “Good morning to you as well, Azura. It’s lovely out today.”

And indeed it is - the sky is brilliant and clear, and summer is starting to show from spring’s clutches.

Hinoka, on the other hand, hasn’t had much of an attitude change at all since the last time they saw each other - she’s still very much chomping at the bit to spend some time with Corrin, all antsy and not-so-secret glances into the palace doors when she thinks the others aren’t looking. Still, she’s friendly and warm at Azura’s morning greeting. “Morning! You’re looking good as usual. I heard Corrin is back early, too - was everything alright?”

“Fine now, don’t worry. She can tell you about it herself when she gets out.” Having assured Hinoka, who hums contentedly, she finally presses on to take her place by Sakura.

“Good morning, Azura. Sorry to surprise you when you just woke up. Big brother decided to hold a festival at the last minute....” Looking sheepish, Sakura tugs at her own casual wear, a cute, patterned red kimono. It’s not so different from her usual shrine maiden attire. “I’m a little worried about everyone setting it up, being honest....”

She trails off, clearly just as embarrassed as Azura had been. Azura reassures her as best she can. “I’m sure Ryoma didn’t demand too much of anyone. In the meantime, why don’t we look for new ribbons for you today?”

Sakura smiles tentatively. “That sounds nice. Can I pick some for you, too?”

“If you’d like.” Azura replies, then turns her gaze aside toward the ground. “ Although I’m afraid I have troubles looking cute so much as aloof - I’m not sure cute ribbons like the ones you like would suit me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true!” Sakura says in an encouraging voice. “A-and even if it is, I can just pick out a charm instead. I want to make the most of a shopping trip with you!”

She hides a laugh behind the back of her hand. “If you insist. I’ll be sure to do the same, Sakura.”

The four pass time with idle chatter in efforts to distract Hinoka until Corrin and Ryoma get back and they set off for the center of town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Azura told Ryoma Corrin was sad and a Dad Outfit physically manifested on him that night. Also, more crying! But this is happy crying that made me feel nice instead of panic attack crying that made me feel sad. Hope that had the intended effect on the rest of you as well! Mikoto's characterization is a subject of stress for me because of how little we know about her, but I'm working with what I have. She's graceful and wise, sure, but she also has a sweet tooth and a tendency to be scatterbrained. Most of what i know i have to pull from the Orochi and Yukimura supports. And now for what everyone wanted: All! That! Lore!
> 
> You might have noticed the deviation from canon where I said Sakura is Mikoto's birth child. That's because I doubted Sumeragi kept concubines or cheated on his wife like Garon and it was the only/best way to explain Sumeragi taking in Corrin as his daughter so quickly - marrying Mikoto. The game never really mentions Queen Ikona, so...Since Corrin is the middle child and I lack an explanation as to how she died, I had her pass away giving birth to Takumi, meaning Mikoto came in early enough to be a mother to most of the kids save maybe Ryoma/Hinoka. Mikoto is also more open about Sumeragi not being Corrin's dad because, tbh, it's a headache to juggle how they could have lied about then when ppl knew Sumeragi wasn't a philanderer. Corrin was 4 when they married (in my timeline). Also, Mikoto's oath to Anankos only covers "never tell our kid who I am/anything about me", not "just act like she has no dad lmao". And she's still very faithful to that promise here. 
> 
> But wait! You may be saying. If Ryoma, Hinoka, and possibly the others know Sumeragi wasn't the baby daddy, then why do they think Corrin's a dragon bc of the dawn dragon? And for this, I have a (weak) explanation. This problem was also in the base game, since Ryoma also comes to this conclusion despite knowing someone else sired Corrin. The best I'm able to come up with is that he might think Mikoto had Corrin with another dragon descendant - there are 12 First Dragons, after all. Maybe he thinks it was Fuga? The Flame or Ice tribe chief? Maybe there's a deadbeat Hoshidan uncle somewhere? Who knows. The entire plot of fates is held up by like, nine toothpicks and a paperclip. I'm trying to make something sensible out of what I have. I'll also respond to any lore questions u may leave in the comments!
> 
> And now for the timeline! I can't give you any information from the valla segment of it without fear of spoilers, but the most I can tell you is that Azura was already born before Valla collapsed, and Mikoto stayed behind for longer than Arete. Azura is 3 years older than Corrin in this fic. Arete is 6 years older than Mikoto (well, until she died, lmao).  
> -Mikoto arrived when Corrin was an infant, and Corrin was 2 when Takumi was born and Ikona died. Mikoto and Sumeragi married 2 years later.  
> -Mikoto had Sakura a year after that. Corrin was 5. The same year, when Azura was 8, Arete died.  
> -Corrin was kidnapped next year at the age of 6.  
> -Azura was kidnapped one year later, when she was 10. Elise was born the same year.  
> -Corrin lives with the Nohrian family for 6 years before being chased out.  
> -10 years pass before Azura and Corrin meet on the mountain.  
> AGES- Corrin is 22, Azura is 25. Takumi is 20 (we'll say Leo is the same age), Sakura is 17, and Elise is 15. The ages of the older royal siblings are more up to debate, but since they all have to be older than Azura as well as Corrin, that puts them at a minimum of 26. Hinoka is 26, while Camilla is 27. I put both Ryoma and Xander down as 31 just so they'd have time to know their first set of parents - Ryoma being 11 when Queen Ikona passed away and Xander being 8 or 9 when Queen Katerina passed away. Besides, they're both kind of the older type anyway. Just for fun, I also made ages for the still-living parents: Mikoto is 49 (27 when she had Corrin) and Garon is 53 (22 when he had Xander). Arete was 38 when she died and would have been the oldest at 55 were she still alive. It sounds old until you realize if they'd been much younger they'd only be a decade and a half older than their eldest kids. Anankos says he blessed humans with longevity so we'll just, uhh, assume that means the marital ages in Valla are a little higher than in Nohr and Hoshido. 
> 
> If you read this you're a champ! Literally I almost hit the character limit. I hope you liked Jess' Lore Corner and I'm sorry to those who did not want to wade thru All That Garbage sdgkjshg. thank you so much for reading the chapter and I hope the day/night finds you well! Here's to hoping the next chapter comes quickly, too.

**Author's Note:**

> dramatic?? I dont Know Her,,,, lmao anyways this is going to be a fun au imo because even though all the usual background is technically in place this took SUCH a wild curveball in terms of Corrin not really being raised by either country that i get to play with the plot from the ground up basically?? 
> 
> thank u for reading and please hit me up if you have any criticisms, compliments, keyboard smashes, strongly worded letters asking for my manager etc. thanks again have a cool day or night wherever you are!


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